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PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH W.  F.  BARRETT,  F.R.8. 

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THE   CIVIL   WAR 


BY 
FREDERIC  L.  PAXSON 

PROFESSOR    OF   AMERICAN    HISTORY    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY 
OF   WISCONSIN 

Author  oftteThe  Independence  of  the  South  American 
Republics,"  "TAf  Last  American  Frontier** 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND   COMPANY 

LONDON 
WILLIAMS  AND   NORGATE 


COPYRIGHT,  1911, 

BY 
HENRY    HOLT  AND    COMPANY 


THE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS,   CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PACK 

I    THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND 11 

II    SECESSION 25 

III  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 39 

IV  CIVIL  WAR   .    .    .    < 54 

V    AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD 72 

VI      1862:    McCLELLAN   AND   EMANCIPATION       ...  92 

VII    1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY 115 

VIII    ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 135 

IX  GETTYSBURG  AND  RECONSTRUCTION 160 

X  THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER 186 

XI  THE  UNION  PARTY 209 

XII  THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE 232 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 251 

INDEX  .                                                                   ,  253 


2266 


LIST  OF   MAPS 

FAOE 

I  THE  UNITED  STATES  IK  1860 36 

II   RAILROADS  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  1861-1865     .  57 

III  THE  SEAT  OF  WAR  IN  THE  EAST 93 

IV  THE  WAR  IN  THE  WEST   .                             .    ,  114 


PREFACE 

It  is  the  attempt  of  this  book  to  show  that  the 
Civil  War  was  more  than  a  succession  of  battles; 
that  it  was  a  struggle  between  two  civilizations, 
each  the  logical  result  of  its  environment,  and  each 
endeavoring  to  work  out  the  best  American  interest 
as  it  saw  it.  That  of  the  two  civilizations,  one 
was  reactionary,  and  opposed  to  both  the  humani 
tarian  sentiments  of  the  nineteenth  century  and 
the  economic  profit  of  the  race,  is  quite  as  true  as 
the  fact  that  honesty  and  intelligence  were  about 
evenly  divided  in  the  contest.  The  motive  for 
secession,  slavery,  was  indefensible  in  the  long  run, 
but  men  brought  up  with  that  institution  believed 
in  it,  and  were  led  by  it  to  believe  that  the  Con 
stitution  had  not  created  a  nation,  —  a  position 
in  which  they  were  contradicted  by  the  facts  of 
industry  and  the  law  of  the  land.  On  both  counts, 
slavery  and  secession,  American  history  must 
adjudge  the  South  to  have  been  mistaken. 

It  is  reasonably  clear  to-day,  that  the  South 
would  of  herself  have  discarded  slavery  in  another 
generation  ;  that  the  New  Nationalism  would  have 


x  PREFACE 

come  about  without  the  Civil  War.  Yet  the  war 
dominated  in  the  American  mind  for  forty  years, 
and  is  worthy  of  study  if  only  on  this  account. 

The  reader  of  this  book  is  urged  to  study  the 
campaigns  with  the  map  before  him.  The  larger 
strategy  of  the  Civil  War  was  simple  and  direct, 
but,  without  a  map,  it  will  remain  incompre 
hensible. 

The  writer  of  the  book  is  indebted  to  innumer 
able  fore-runners,  who  have  re-fought  the  battles 
on  paper,  and  disputed  controverted  points.  The 
limits  of  a  preface  do  not  permit  all  the  acknowl 
edgments  that  he  would  like  to  make.  But  the 
greatest  of  his  debts  is  one  which  he,  in  common 
with  every  other  student  of  the  Civil  War,  owes 
to  the  profound,  judicial,  and  enlightened  pages 
of  James  Ford  Rhodes. 

MADISON,  WISCONSIN, 

August,  1911. 


fl 
THE  CIVIL  WAR 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND 

AFTER  more  than  fourscore  years  of  storm 
and  calm,  of  war  and  politics,  of  trying 
hardships  and  yet  more  trying  prosperity, 
the  United  States  remained  both  independ 
ent  and  united  in  1860.  In  commerce  as 
in  government  it  had  managed,  one  way 
and  another,  to  hold  together  and  to  grow. 
Through  accretion  and  happy  accident, 
rather  than  foresight  or  construction,  it  had 
attained  a  size  and  wealth  surprising  to  its 
critics  and  overwhelming  to  its  citizens. 
Only  a  few  of  these  knew  whence  it  had 
come  or  whither  it  was  tending,  yet  in  the 
souls  of  nearly  all  there  burned  a  love  of 
country  and  pride  of  performance  that  made 
the  American  a  marked  man  wherever  he 
appeared  in  the  society  of  the  world. 

The  American  Civil  War  was  fought  on 
both  sides  by  men  who  had  lived  through  a 
period  of  national  adolescence.  Their  in 
tellectual  heritage  was  one.  In  the  conduct 
11 


CIVIL  WAR 


of  their  affairs  they  showed  the  weaknesses 
as  well  as  the  strength  of  their  experience. 
They  were  essentially  American  whether 
they  were  right  or  wrong. 

Only  the  calm  judgment  of  posterity  can 
determine  which  side  was  wrong.  Few  of 
the  men  who  voted  for  or  against  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  1860  knew  enough  real  history 
to  be  influenced  by  it.  What  they  thought 
was  history  they  had  taken  from  the  lips  of 
their  statesmen,  as  they  had  read  the  speeches 
of  Webster  or  Calhoun.  The  sources  of  their 
knowledge  were  themselves  colored  by  the 
facts  of  the  prolonged  controversy  that  had 
given  life  to  American  politics  for  thirty 
years.  Yet,  after  all,  one  side  was  right 
and  one  was  wrong.  Though  advocates  of 
either  were  frequently  mistaken  in  their 
application  of  historic  facts,  though  par 
tisans  of  both  were  always  more  honest 
than  informed,  one  side  of  the  quarrel  har 
monized  generally  with  the  trend  of  human 
experience  and  the  laws  of  economicyand 
political  evolution;  the  other  was  reactionary 
and  as  such  condemned  by  time. 

Any  explanation  of  the  causes  of  the  Civil 
War  must  take  into  account  the  forces  which 
had  made  the  American  and  the  southern 
environments.  Fundamental  among  those 
of  the  latter  was  the  cultivation  of  the 
cotton  plant,  and  the  type  of  labor  which  it 
permitted.  From  the  earliest  days  of  Amer 
ican  colonization  there  had  been  divergent 

fyt 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND  13 

tendencies  to  separate  the  plantations  of 
the  southern  seaboard  from  the  farms  of 
the  Atlantic  coast  north  of  Delaware  Bay. 
Climate,  in  the  South,  checked  the  physical 
activities  of  white  men,  whereas  in  the 
North  it  stimulated  and  invigorated  them. 
The  northern  ^sojL.  responded  only  to  per 
sistent  and  vigorous  attack;  the  farm  lands 
along  the  southern  rivers  invited  the  easy 
cultivation  of  a  few  staple  crops.  Every 
where  the  question  of  labor  supply  was  great. 
In  a  new  country  tlie  invitation  to  work 
must  always  be  more  generous  than  the 
response  of  workers.  But  in  North  and  South 
this  invitation  called  for  different  answers. 

The  northern  laborer  before  1830  was 
most  likely  to  be  a  farmer,  or  to  be  con 
nected  in  some  way  with  agricultural  en 
terprise.  The  range  of  crops  to  which  his 
labor  could  be  applied  was  so  wide  that  no 
single  product  dominated.  All  the  year 
round  he  worked,  in  the  fields  or  indoors  at 
domestic  manufactures.  Turning  from  job 
to  job,  doing  a  dozen  different  tasks  between 
sunrise  and  sunset,  he  succeeded  best  who 
had  those  traits  which  the  term  Yankee  has 
come  to  signify  —  quick  alertness,  readi 
ness  of  initiative,  intelligence  and  compe 
tence.  Working  by  himself,  and  generally 
for  himself,  at  tasks  that  called  for  close 
individual  application,  the  northern  laborer 
was  the  highest  of  his  kind.  The  oppor 
tunity  which  the  New  World  offered  for 


14  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

advancement  quickened  his  intellect  and 
inspired  his  exertions.  Unless  he  was  a 
Yankee  he  could  not  prosper. 

The  southern  climate  and  soil  permitted 
the  use  of  a  different  kind  of  labor  from  that 
which  was  essential  to  the  North.  Single 
crops,  which  could  be  cultivated  by  routine, 
could  be  grown  over  wide  areas.  It  was  not 
that  individual  application  and  industry 
could  not  succeed  in  the  South,  but  that 
conditions  allowed  this  industry  to  exploit 
a  variety  of  labor  that  could  not  justify  its 
existence  in  the  North.  Had  half-civilized 
negro  laborers  been  usable  in  the  North, 
slavery  would  have  flourished  there,  for 
labor  was  in  high  demand,  and  the  average 
ethics  of  the  seventeenth  century  saw  noth 
ing  anomalous  in  a  human  chattel.  But  in 
the  southern  climate  the  low-class  Megro 
laborer  adapted  himself  readily.  Improvi 
dent  and  incompetent  he  was,  but  under 
white  direction,  in  a  new  and  fertile  land,  he 
could  be  used  to  the  profit  of  his  owner. 
The  plantation  system,  which  is  only  the 
application  of  gang  labor  and  routine  tasks 
to  agriculture,  had  already  become  a  south 
ern  type  before  the  American  Revolution. 
The  pegro  was  held  as  a  slave  largely  be 
cause  no  other  way  was  known  to  control 
barbarian  laborers.  The  slave-owner  was 
not  yet  troubled  by  logical  deductions  from 
the  rights  of  man. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  American  govern- 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND  15 

ment  under  the  Constitution,  in  1789,  there 
was  a  difference  existing  between  the  labor 
systems  of  the  northern  and  southern  states; 
but  there  were  many  other  differences  among 
the  sectionalistic  and  localistic  states  that 
were  believed  to  be  more  serious.  "It  is  too 
probable  that  no  plan  we  propose  will  be 
adopted,"  the  most  eminent  American  had 
admitted  in  1787  when  he  confronted  the 
task  of  finding  a  working  basis  for  friendly 
relations  among  thirteen  independent  states. 
During  the  War  of  Independence,  common 
interests  had  produced  such  similarity  of 
result  among  the  states  that  many  have 
believed  that  they  were  then  really  united. 
During  the  years  of  the  Confederacy  diver 
gent  selfish  interests  reduced  to  complete 
incompetence  the  congress  of  ambassadors 
created  by  the  Articles  of  Confederation. 
And  when  in  1789  the  new  Constitution  was 
allowed  to  go  into  effect  the  doubters  and 
scoffers  were  innumerable.  The  states, 
though  resembling  each  other  in  language, 
government,  and  practices,  were  in  fact  in 
dependent  and  jealous.  They  had  been 
units  as  British  provinces;  and  between 
1776  and  1789  they  had  developed  so  few 
economic  interests  that  crossed  state  lines, 
that  the  convention,  entrusting  all  these 
general  interests  to  the  new  government, 
had  summed  them  up  in  a  single  clause 
respecting  commerce. 

The  economic  development  of  the  United 


16  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

States  after  1789,  is  a  part  of  that  great  in 
dustrial  revolution  that  has  re-made  nearly 
every  government  of  modern  Europe.  In 
America  population  multiplied  and  spread. 
Crossing  the  Alleghanies  the  pioneers  of  the 
West  erected  new  states  which,  one  by  one, 
were  admitted  to  the  Union  until  in  1860 
the  original  thirteen  had  been  enlarged  to 
thirty-three.  The  western  commonwealths 
perpetuated  the  ideas  and  economic  institu 
tions  of  their  eastern  predecessors.  Follow 
ing  climatic  lines,  the  territories  of  the 
Northwest  fou'nd  their  prosperity  in  free 
labor,  and  had  been  so  manifestly  predeter 
mined  in  this  that  Congress  had  been  able 
in  1787  to  respond  to  a  new  humanitarian 
sentiment  and  forbid  slavery,  forever,  in 
the  Old  Northwest.  The  Southwest  throve 
on  the  cotton  crop,  made  ever  more  im 
portant  by  the  invention  of  the  gin,  the 
sewing  machine,  and  the  application  of  steam, 
and  continued  the  exploitation  of  negro  labor 
on  the  plantation  in  the  culture  of  that 
staple. 

The  minute  localism  of  interests  which 
had  characterized  the  American  states  in 
1789  was  in  part  destroyed  by  1830.  One 
group  of  states,  possessing  climatic  similarity 
and  geographic  propinquity,  had  acquired  a 
common  quality  that  gave  to  it  weight  in 
the  counsels  of  the  nation  out  of  proportion 
to  its  population  or  wealth.  The  northern 
states  remained  individualistic  and  often 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND  17 

antagonistic,  but  south  of  Pennsylvania  and 
the  Ohio  River,  every  state  possessing  the 
plantation  system  and  slave  labor  felt  its 
closeness  to  its  neighbors  in  the  common 
jealousy  of  anything  which  might  injure  the 
value  o?  its  slave  property.  The  South  had 
become  a  section  that  in  many  ways  forgot 
state  lines.  Its  representatives  in  Congress 
voted  as  a  unit.  The  philanthropic  notions 
of  the  nineteenth  century  aroused  its  fears 
and  antagonisms.  Vitally  interested  in  the 
property  which  its  economic  situation  had 
allowed  it  to  accrue,  it  could  see  no  good  in 
social  movements  that  threatened  the  per 
manence  of  its  vested  rights. 

Economic  unity,  based  upon  slave  labor, 
had  come  to  the  South  before  1830.  Such 
unity,  over  a  large  portion  of  the  United 
States,  had  not  been  anticipated  by  the  fram- 
ers  of  the  Constitution  whose  experience  had 
been  with  the  centrifugal  forces  of  local 
rivalry.  Once  recognized,  however,  it  gave 
to  the  states  involved  such  an  advantage  in 
federal  affairs  that  they  were  able  to  control 
the  government.  After  twenty  years  of 
this  control,  they  had  come  to  believe  them 
selves  entitled,  as  of  right,  to  direct  those 
national  policies  which  an  accident  of  eco 
nomics  had  thrown  into  their  hands. 

In  the  twenty  years  after  1830,  while  the 
South  was  exulting  in  its  dominance  over 
Congress,  the  northern  states  underwent  a 
unifying  process,  and  became  the  North. 


18  THE   CIVIL  WAR 

Here,  as  in  the  South,  it  was  the  trend  of 
business  that  produced  unity.  There,  a 
common  method  of  production  gave  rise  to 
a  community  of  interests  that  was  intensi 
fied  when  the  rest  of  the  world  repudiated 
slavery.  Interchange  of  wares  destroyed 
the  localism  of  the  North. 

The  Allegheny  Mountains  were  both  an 
obstacle  and  an  encouragement  to  the  eco 
nomic  development  of  the  North.  So  long  as 
they  were  crossed  only  by  narrow  and  devious 
wagon  paths,  they  prevented  any  large  ex 
change  of  commodities.  They  were  but  a 
slight  obstruction  to  the  South,  which  passed 
them  and  found  on  their  western  slopes 
rivers  flowing  easily  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
and  providing  abundant  routes  to  a  market 
for  their  products.  But  they  were  a  real 
barrier  between  the  Northeast  and  the 
Northwest.  The  latter  region  found  that  it 
was  limited  to  the  markets  reached  by  the 
tedious  courses  of  the  St.  Lawrence  or  the 
Mississippi.  It  coveted  the  trade  of  the 
populous  eastern  states,  and  this  desire 
caused  it  to  press  for  roads  across  the  moun 
tains.  Turnpikes,  useful  but  inadequate, 
were  built,  used,  and  discarded  for  canals; 
while  these  in  turn  were  superseded  by  the 
railroad  just  as  soon  as  steam  was  brought 
under  control. 

During  the  two  decades  in  which  the  South 
was  convincing  itself  that  cotton  was  king, 
and  was  rushing  its  crop  to  a  receptive 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND  19 

world  by  the  water  routes  that  nature  had 
provided,  the  North  and  Northwest  were 
struggling  with  grades  and  tunnels,  cuts  and 
embankments.  Before  1840  railroads  scarcely 
diverted  the  streams  of  American  trade. 
In  the  next  ten  years  the  trunk  lines  climbed 
the  Alleghenies.  During  the  fifties,  10,000 
miles  of  railway  were  opened  in  the  Old 
Northwest  alone,  and  every  farmer  north 
of  the  Ohio  could  ship  direct  to  tidewater 
on  the  Atlantic.  It  was  not  a  habit  or  a 
system  of  labor  that  produced  the  economic 
unity  of  the  North  in  contrast  to  that  of  the 
plantation  South.  It  was  a  physical  amal 
gamation  that  suddenly  appeared  between 
1850  and  1860,  and  it  was  based  upon  20,000 
miles  of  railway  track  which  defied  the  sec 
tionalism  of  geography. 

From  1830  to  1850  the  united  South  con 
trolled  the  policies  of  the  United  States. 
Few  even  of  its  leaders  foresaw  the  economic 
trend  of  the  North.  The  quick  changes  of 
the  fifties,  operating  everywhere  in  the  United 
States,  but  most  strikingly  in  the  free  states, 
where  capital  was  mobile  and  was  not  tied 
up  in  an  owned  labor  supply,  came  as  a 
shock  to  the  South,  which  had  long  been  a 
united  section  and  which  did  not  abandon 
hope  of  permanent  control  until  after  1860. 

The  conditions  of  1789,  in  which  each 
state  lived  by  and  for  itself,  had  forever 
passed  away  by  1860.  Even  in  the  South 
independence  by  states  was  out  of  the  ques- 


20  THE    CIVIL  WAR 

tion.  The  railway  net,  and  the  growing 
industrialism  of  society  demanded  govern 
ment  of  a  type  not  foreseen  when,  in  1789, 
the  states  forswore  their  sovereignty  and 
entered  the  Union.  The  development  of 
the  national  government  was  inevitable. 
Had  the  Constitution  been  as  the  southern 
leaders  persuaded  themselves  it  was,  there 
must  have  been  revolution  or  wholesale 
amendment  to  adapt  it  to  modern  life  as 
shaped  by  machinery  and  steam  transporta 
tion.  Happily,  however,  it  was  adequate  to 
the  needs  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
the  odium  of  revolutionary  attempt  falls 
upon  the  section  that  tried  to  construe  it 
so  as  to  turn  back  the  hands  of  time. 

The  Constitution  had  been  adopted  as  an 
experiment.  Many  believed  that  it  was  too 
rigorous  for  liberty  to  survive  under  it. 
Others  lamented  the  absence  of  a  more 
strongly  centralized  machine.  It  was  a 
compromise,  reached  by  a  convention  that 
sat  in  secret,  and  ratified  as  the  last  hope 
of  avoiding  anarchy  and  dissolution.  That 
commercial  growth  should  in  less  than  a 
century  weld  the  thirteen  rival  states,  and 
twenty  more,  into  an  industrial  unit  was  not 
anticipated  by  even  the  wilder  enthusiasts 
of  federalism.  Many  of  the  framers  would 
probably  have  admitted  that,  if  the  experi 
ment  should  fail  to  work,  the  states  could 
resume  their  former  independence.  Yet 
they  had  inserted  in  the  document  phrases 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND'.        21 

whose  ratification  destroyed  the  possibility 
of  rupture  of  the  new  Union  by  anything 
short  of  revolution.  "This  Constitution, 
and  the  Laws  of  the  United  States  which 
shall  be  made  in  pursuance  thereof,"  the 
sixth  article  runs,  "shall  be  the  supreme 
Law  of  the  Land;  and  the  Judges  in  every 
State  shall  be  bound  thereby,  anything  in 
the  Constitution  or  Laws  of  any  State  to  the 
Contrary  notwithstanding."  To  the  courts 
created  by  the  Constitution  was  assigned 
judicial  power  extending  "to  all  Cases,  in 
Law  and  Equity,  arising  under  this  Consti 
tution,  the  Laws  of  the  United  States,  and 
Treaties  made,  or  which  shall  be  made,  under 
their  Authority."  Without  catching  the 
attention  of  most  of  its  contemporaries  a 
new  nation  had  come  into  being  with  all  the 
power  necessary  to  maintain  itself.  Within 
the  limits  of  its  delegated  authority,  concern 
ing  whose  extent  its  own  supreme  court  was 
to  be  the  final  judge,  the  nation  was  supreme. 
In  the  years  following  1789  one  state  after 
another  became  discontented  with  its  treat 
ment  under  the  Constitution,  and  in  bad 
temper  denied  its  obligation  to  submit  to 
federal  exaction.  But  every  time  a  local 
grievance  produced  its  protest  the  weight 
of  the  disinterested  states  stifled  it.  As 
business  came  gradually  to  the  courts  of  the 
United  States,  these  accepted  freely  the 
doctrine  that  the  Constitution  had  become 
the  law  of  the  land.  When  Calhoun,  realiz- 


22  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ing  the  essential  sectionalism  which  slavery 
gave  to  the  South,  announced  again  the 
doctrine  of  secession  as  a  remedy  within  the 
Constitution,  Webster  found,  in  all  the  dis 
interested  states,  lawyers  and  laymen  to 
follow  him  when  he  made  his  ringing  plea 
for  "Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  forever, 
one  and  inseparable! " 

After  1830,  southern  leaders  continued  in 
general  adherence  to  the  Calhoun  theory  of 
the  right  of  the  state  to  refuse  to  obey  what 
it  believed  to  be  unconstitutional  laws.  The 
cotton  fields  spread  out  of  the  old  South  into 
the  Southwest,  and  the  glamour  of  the  great 
plantation  owners'  wealth  concealed  the 
undesirable  position  of  the  low  class  whites 
and  the  absence  of  that  social  uniformity 
which  was  the  triumph  of  the  North.  From 
the  knowledge  that  slave  labor  was  personally 
profitable  to  the  favored  class  it  was  easy 
to  develop  a  plausible  argument  that  it  was 
profitable  to  the  society  that  employed  it, 
although  in  the  whole  South  only  about 
one  person  in  ten  owned  any  slaves,  and 
fewer  than  12,000  owned  as  many  as  50,  in 
1860.  It  was  forgotten  that  listless,  incom 
petent  labor  is  dear  even  when  employed 
without  a  wage.  Until  the  railway  appeared, 
with  its  large  demand  for  free  capital  for 
investment,  the  South  could  not  see  the  fact 
that  it  was  bound  to  a  system  that  forbade 
change  in  method  or  adaptation  to  the  con 
ditions  of  modern  life.  The  men  who  prof- 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  LAND  23 

ited  by  the  institution  had  made  themselves 
into  an  aristocracy  that  controlled  the  poli 
tics  as  well  as  the  business  of  their  section, 
and  whatever  threatened  their  interests  was 
treason  to  the  social  order.  In  the  national 
government  they  met  each  step  against 
slavery  with  threats  of  dissolution  of  the 
Union,  but  in  no  case  before  1860  were  they 
compelled  to  carry  out  their  threat,  since 
their  compact  unity  controlled  Congress. 
The  North  had  passed  the  South  in  both 
population  and  wealth;  being  free  itself,  it 
had  come  to  dislike  slavery;  and  not  sharing 
in  the  profits  of  slavery  it  had  been  able  to 
develop  a  public  opinion  antagonistic  to  it. 
But  until  the  trunk  line  railways  were  done 
in  the  early  fifties,  it  had  no  political  unity 
that  could  give  its  opinions  weight.  The 
generation  of  Webster  passed  away,  leaving 
behind  in  the  North  a  new  generation  that 
had  declaimed  his  reply  to  Hayne  in  their 
school  days,  and  had  grown  up  to  see  an 
indestructible  Union,  in  law,  become  one  in 
economic  fact.  Until  1854  every  time  the 
South  faced  Congress  with  the  alternatives 
of  concession  to  slavery  or  secession,  it  carried 
its  point  against  the  disorganization  of  the 
northern  states.  Before  the  end  of  the  fifties, 
the  changing  North  became  a  nation  that 
must  one  day  refuse  to  be  scared  by  the 
bogey  of  disunion,  and  stand  its  ground  on 
the  hard  facts  of  economics  and  law.  From 
the  beginning,  the  Constitution  had  been 


24  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  supreme  law  of  the  land.  Under  it,  a 
majority  was  entitled  to  rule.  Before  1860  a 
united  nation,  bound  unbreakably  by  the 
irons  of  30,000  miles  of  railway  and  nearly 
independent  of  sectionalism  that  was  based 
on  geographic  accident,  lived  under  the 
Constitution  and  was  prepared  to  test  its 
strength. 


CHAPTER  II 

SECESSION 

THE  rise  and  growth  of  the  Republican 
party  is  the  measure  of  the  realization  on 
the  part  of  the  North  that  it  had  a  unity  as 
well  as  a  political  purpose.  For  many  years 
Lundy,  Garrison,  Channing,  and  Parker  had 
preached  against  the  slavery  which  the  North 
had  outgrown.  Exasperating  to  the  South, 
and  ineffective  in  the  North,  the  new  gospel 
was  the  work  of  individuals  and  produced 
no  reaction  that  could  check  the  annexa 
tion  of  Texas,  the  conquest  of  Mexico,  the 
opening  of  the  territories  to  slavery,  or  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise.  Both 
great  parties,  Whig  and  Democrat,  feared 
the  loss  of  the  southern  vote.  Their  leaders 
repeatedly  professed  themselves  to  believe 
that  the  rising  question  was  settled.  Re 
gardless  of  party  lines,  southern  politicians 
voted  with  unerring  vision  when  sectional 
interests  were  involved.  But  in  the  year 
in  which  the  first  Chicago  railway  reached 
the  Mississippi  there  was  born  a  party  of 
opposition  to  the  continued  exactions  of  the 
South. 

25 


26  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  opening  of  the  railways  was  followed 
by  hopeful  speculation  throughout  the  North. 
Chicago,  Cleveland,  Cincinnati,  Indianapolis, 
and  St.  Louis  struggled  among  themselves 
for  the  control  of  the  markets  of  the  East. 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and 
Boston  sent  their  agents  out  to  secure  the 
markets  of  the  West.  New  activities  and 
general  prosperity  are  recorded  in  the  com 
mercial  journals  of  the  fifties.  Close  upon 
these,  intellectual  and  political  enthusiasms 
followed.  Every  mile  of  track  increased 
the  weekly  range  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 
Unity  in  trade  relations  became  the  founda 
tion  of  an  approach  to  uniformity  in  con 
viction  and  action.  The  deep  emotions 
aroused  among  individuals  when  Douglas, 
in  1854,  directed  the  organization  of  Kansas 
and  Nebraska,  and  opened  the  territories  to 
slavery,  came  at  a  time  when  newspapers 
were  circulating  with  a  new  ease,  and  men 
in  the  North  were  becoming  conscious  of 
their  political  weight. 

The  Kansas-Nebraska  law,  passed  in  May, 
1854,  repealed  the  Missouri  compromise  and 
organized  two  territories,  whose  status  as 
to  slavery  or  freedom  should  be  regulated  in 
the  future  by  their  occupants.  Before  it 
was  signed,  resistance  to  its  fundamental 
premise  had  appeared  throughout  the  North. 
On  July  13,  the  anniversary  of  the  great 
Northwest  ordinance  of  1787,  numerous 
mass  meetings  denounced  the  repudiation  of 


SECESSION  27 

a  sacred  compromise.  In  the  autumn  elec 
tions,  a  new  party  showed  itself  able  to  break 
down,  here  and  there,  a  party  line.  In  every 
month  after  July,  1854,  the  new  party, 
named  Republican,  became  stronger  and 
more  clearly  defined  throughout  the  North 
as  a  sectional  party,  favoring  opposition  to 
the  sectional  policy  of  the  South  that  had 
won  every  important  division  for  nearly 
thirty  years. 

In  1856  the  Republican  party  entered  upon 
its  first  national  campaign.  It  was  too  weak 
to  hope  for  success;  leaders  of  assured  repu 
tation  were  yet  unready  to  imperil  their 
future  by  accepting  its  nominations.  Made 
of  men  of  diverse  antecedents,  with  no 
common  bond  save  the  desire  to  restrict  the 
extension  of  slavery,  it  was  forced  to  feel 
its  way  among  the  old  issues.  It  contented 
itself  with  a  candidate  no  more  important 
than  John  C.  Fremont,  whose  title  to  fame 
was  his  service  as  an  explorer,  and  whose 
meagre  abilities  were  ever  to  be  over-exploited 
by  his  better  half,  a  daughter  of  Thomas  Hart 
Benton  of  Missouri.  Yet  the  new  party 
carried  eleven  northern  states  and  polled  a 
third  of  the  popular  vote.  Fremont  was 
defeated  by  James  Buchanan,  an  elderly 
northern  Democrat,  backed  by  the  united 
South;  but  the  old  Whig  party  was  almost 
extinguished  and  the  Republicans  now  took 
their  place  as  one  of  the  two  great  party  or 
ganizations.  Thus  far  they  had  been  a  party 


28  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  idealists;  hereafter  the  practical  politician 
gained  more  than  a  foothold  among  them. 

In  the  next  four  years  the  sectional  char 
acter  of  the  controversy  became  more  clear. 
Forgetful  that  it  had  been  the  first  to  estab 
lish  a  permanent  sectionalism  in  politics, 
the  South  denounced  the  sectional  character 
of  the  "Black  Republicans."  Bad  temper, 
which  had  always  been  associated  with  the 
slavery  struggle,  became  worse.  Ignorance 
of  the  motives  and  character  of  the  Republi 
cans,  on  the  part  of  the  South,  was  exceeded 
only  by  the  northern  ignorance  of  the  ca 
pacity  of  the  negro  and  the  temper  of  the 

/slave-holder.  The  greatest  test  of  popular 
government  must  always  come  when  the 
constitutional  majority  is  separated  from 
the  minority  by  a  geographic  line.  When 
parties  are  intermingled  over  the  same  area 
the  majority  always  knows  the  minority  too 
well  to  be  unduly  harsh.  But  sectional 
parties  are  separated  by  a  gulf  of  ignorance 

\  which  no  charity  can  bridge,  and  either  side 
is  willing  and  anxious  to  believe  the  worst  of 
its  opponent.  Thoroughly  American  on 
both  sides,  devoted  to  the  Union  as  they  knew 
it  and  the  ideals  that  flourished  in  their 
sections,  the  North  and  South  came  to  face 
an  issue  in  which  one  must  triumph  and  the 
other  surrender.  Henry  Clay  had  outlived 
the  period  of  compromises  and  now  a  con 
solidating  North  could  no  longer  yield. 
The  platform  of  the  Republicans  was  clear 


SECESSION  29 

in  1856.  Its  leaders  were  yet  to  be  developed 
from  the  three  classes  of  men  who  acted  with 
the  party.  Mature  Democrats  and  mature 
Whigs  abandoned  their  old  relations,  in  their 
opposition  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  meas 
ures.  To  these  were  added  young  men,  who 
had  read  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  as  youths, 
and  who  came  to  their  first  vote  in  1856  or 
1860.  Most  prominent  of  the  leaders  who 
took  up  the  new  fight  was  William  H.  Seward, 
former  governor  of  New  York,  enthusiastic, 
vigorous,  and  plausible,  whose  best  known 
phrase  gave  name  to  the  "irrepressible  con 
flict."  Next  to  Seward  was  Governor  Salmon 
P.  Chase  of  Ohio,  once  a  Democrat,  of  solid 
legal  knowledge  and  first-rate  administra 
tive  ability,  who  fell  short  of  greatness  only 
through  his  touch  of  personal  ambition. 
After  these  came  the  lesser  lights,  inspired 
by  principle  or  hope  of  profit.  Some  were 
spoilsmen  who  abandoned  sinking  ships, 
others  were  abolitionists  whose  radical  ideas 
found  too  little  play  within  the  new  organi 
zation.  One  of  them  was  a  western  poli 
tician,  no  longer  young  and  without  great 
prominence,  whose  right  to  leadership  was 
slowly  established  during  the  administration 
of  James  Buchanan. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,  had  endeared 
himself  to  his  associates,  but  had  made  no 
impression  upon  the  United  States  in  1856. 
He  was  a  country  lawyer,  brought  up  on  a 
raw  frontier,  deprived  of  formal  schooling, 


SO  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

and  making  only  a  moderate  success  at  his 
profession,  when  he  left  his  office  to  cam 
paign  for  the  Republican  party.  He  might 
never  have  passed  beyond  the  activities  of 
a  local  politician  had  not  chance  thrown 
him  against  a  more  successful  citizen  of 
his  state,  who  had  established  himself  as 
the  leader  of  the  Democrats.  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  lifted  Lincoln  into  the  national  vis 
ion.  Fighting  the  Kansas-Nebraska  principle, 
Lincoln  was  ever  on  the  trail  of  Douglas,  the 
author  of  the  bill.  In  1858  they  were  both 
engaged  in  a  contest  over  a  legislature  which 
was  to  choose  a  senator  to  fill  Douglas's 
seat.  After  the  custom  of  the  time  they 
toured  the  state,  speaking  in  joint  debates 
which  failed  to  defeat  Douglas  for  re-elec 
tion,  but  which  clarified  the  issues,  and  made 
the  aims  of  both  great  parties  clear  and 
unmistakable.  In  these  debates  Lincoln, 
as  a  speaker  and  popularizer,  impressed  the 
news  correspondents  who  had  come  west  to 
report  the  speeches  of  Douglas.  The  Repub 
lican  party  found  his  arguments  their  best 
campaign  material.  With  good  temper, 
simplicity,  and  logic  he  stated  the  theories 
of  majority  rule,  and  expressed  his  belief 
that  slavery  would  cease  to  exist.  For  the 
federal  government  he  claimed  only  a  single 
right:  to  exclude  slavery  from  any  of  the 
territories  of  the  United  States.  Over  these, 
he  maintained  that  Congress  had  ample 
power.  The  Dred  Scott  decision,  which 


SECESSION  31 

denied  this  power,  he  criticized  as  bad  law, 
while  he  pledged  his  party  to  unswerving 
opposition  to  any  variety  of  slavery  extension. 
/Among  the  Republicans,  Lincoln  was  a 
'moderate.  Though  believing  skivvy  wrong, 
he  denied  any  power  in  Congress  to  limit  or 
abolish  it  within  the  states.  The  aboli 
tionists  thought  him  impervious  to  the  ethical 
question.  He  was  regarded  as  too  radical 
by  the  practical  politicians  of  his  party  be 
cause  he  frankly  attacked  the  law  of  the  Dred 
Scott  case  and  explicitly  stated  his  desire  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  territories.  If  any  one 
had  cared  to  note  it,  he  might  have  seen  that, 
in  his  personal  judgments,  Lincoln  was  not 
censorious,  that  he  had  no  disposition  to 
denounce  the  slave-holder  but  was  content 
to  fight  the  issue. 

Up  to  the  meeting  of  the  Republican  con 
vention,  in  June,  1860,  few  foresaw  that 
Lincoln  would  secure  the  nomination,  and 
those  few  were  generally  engaged  in  manag 
ing  his  campaign.  The  newspaper  lists  of 
possible  candidates  rarely  included  his  name, 
but  the  disabilities  of  the  reputed  candidates 
were  quite  as  important  for  him  as  his  own 
qualities.  Though  an  old  Whig,  he  had  been 
too  obscure  to  arouse  the  antagonisms  that 
headed  off  the  other  candidates  for  the  nonii- 
.  nation.  It  was  a  disappointing  shock  to 
eastern  Republicans  when  they  learned  that 
at  Chicago  their  party  had  been  induced  to 
accept  a  candidate  without  experience,  with 


32  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

little  national  reputation,  and  with  standing 
chiefly  as  a  man  of  words.  But  dissatisfied 
as  many  Republicans  were,  their  unity  was 
stronger  than  that  of  any  other  party  in  the 
impending  campaign. 

The  rise  of  the  Republicans  was  contempo 
rary  with  the  breakdown  of  the  Whigs  and 
the  schism  of  the  Democrats,  the  last  being 
partlyTfie  result  of  Lincoln's  generalship. 
It  was  he  who  pointed  out  to  the  South  that 
when  Douglas  spoke  of  popular  sovereignty 
he  meant  what  he  said,  —  that  popular 
sovereignty  might  mean  rejection  of  slavery 
as  well  as  its  extension.  To  the  South,  which 
had  accepted  Douglas's  doctrine  as  a  means 
of  extending  slavery,  this  interpretation  was 
disconcerting.  The  extremists  repudiated 
both  the  doctrine  and  its  author;  the  moder 
ates  clung  to  him.  When  the  party  met  in 
national  convention  at  Charleston,  in  April, 
1860,  Douglas  controlled  the  organization, 
but  could  not  prevent  a  radical  minority 
from  bolting  the  convention.  Panic-stricken, 
the  convention  adjourned  to  Baltimore,  only 
to  find  the  schism  wider.  Split  for  the  first 
time,  with  John  C.  Breckinridge  of  Ken 
tucky  heading  the  bolters  and  Douglas  as 
the  nominee  of  the  regulars,  the  Democrats 
offered  victory  to  the  better  united  Repub 
lican  party.  This  victory  was  made  more 
certain  when  a  fourth  ticket,  of  conservative 
Constitutional  Unionists,  brought  John  Bell 
of  Tennessee  into  the  field. 


SECESSION  S3 

The  canvass  of  1860  was  attended  by  the 
same  threats  that  had  appeared  in  every 
previous  slavery  debate.  Having  only  a  mi 
nority  in  the  United  States,  the  South  had 
no  hope  of  continuing  its  control  if  ever 
the  real  majority  should  become  united;  and 
with  its  party  split,  defeat  at  the  polls  now 
seemed  inevitable.  Talk  of  secession  was 
frequent;  if  it  failed  to  frighten  the  Repub 
licans  it  was  because  it  had  been  repeated 
too  often.  In  November  Lincoln  was  elected, 
and  the  South  faced  the  alternatives  of 
accepting  him  or  making  good  its  threats. 

Four  days  after  the  election  of  Lincoln 
South  Carolina  called  a  convention  to  face 
the  crisis.  That  the  Republican  party  would 
be  content  to  restrict  slavery  in  the  territo 
ries  and  leave  it  unmolested  in  the  states, 
no  southerner  believed.  The  South  preferred, 
instead,  to  think  that  John  Brown  was  the 
true  exponent  of  the  Republican  theory, 
and  saw  in  his  fanatical  attempt  at  a  servile 
revolt  a  forerunner  of  abolitionist  control. 
In  the  prolonged  fight  the  section  had  con 
vinced  itself  that  slavery  was  an  economic 
good,  to  be  preserved  at  any  cost.  The 
leaders  now  only  had  to  lead,  for  behind 
them  was  a  popular  sentiment  for  secession 
that  grew  stronger  every  day.  The  South 
Carolina  convention  met  on  December  17, 
1860,  and  three  days  later,  with  popular 
applause,  repealed  the  ordinance  by  which  a 
similar  convention  had  adopted  the  Consti- 


34  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

tution  of  the  United  States.  It  declared 
that  South  Carolina  resumed  her  sovereign 
powers  among  the  nations,  issued  a  declara 
tion  of  causes  which,  like  the  declaration  of 
independence,  justified  the  act,  and  published 
an  address  to  the  people  of  the  slave-holding 
states.  Then  it  adjourned  to  await  the  action 
of  Congress  and  the  South.  There  was  no 
confusing  of  the  issue  and  no  doubt  that 
slavery  was  the  cause.  Fear  of  aggression 
upon  slavery  had  produced  the  resort  to 
Calhoun's  final  remedy. 

Had  all  the  slave-holding  states  followed 
the  example  of  South  Carolina  it  is  doubtful 
if  the  Union  could  have  been  maintained. 
But  in  none  was  secession  unanimous,  while 
in  some  the  Union  sentiment  was  as  strong 
as  the  devotion  to  slavery.  In  the  lower 
South  the  movement  was  most  intense. 
South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Mississippi, 
Alabama,  Louisiana,  and  Texas  fronted  on 
the  Atlantic  and  the  Gulf,  had  seaports  in 
abundance,  and  were  the  centre  of  the  plan 
tation  system.  Within  their  borders  planta 
tions  were  the  largest  and  cotton  culture  was 
the  most  highly  organized.  If  any  communi 
ties  needed  to  hang  together  to  save  their 
slaves  these  did;  and  the  time  of  their  seces 
sion  was  fixed  only  by  convenience.  During 
December  and  January  their  members  in 
Congress  worked  out  a  program  of  co-oper 
ation,  in  accordance  with  which  the  six 
other  states  of  the  lower  South  followed 


SECESSION  35 

South  Carolina  in  repudiating  the  Consti 
tution.  By  February  1,  1861,  they  had  all 
acted,  and  interest  was  concentrated  upon 
the  states  of  a  second  group. 

Just  north  of  the  lower  South  came  a  tier 
of  states  less  identified  with  the  plantation 
system,  having  fewer  slaves  as  well  as  a 
larger  proportion  of  non-slave-holding  whites. 
North  Carolina,  Virginia.  Tenness^f,  q™^ 

been 


the  only  issue  they  might  not  have  risked 
secession  for  it.  But  they,  as  their  neighbors, 
had  been  taught  for  many  years  that  the 
Union  was  a  compact,  terminable  at  will, 
upon  suspicion  of  violation.  The  sovereign 
rights  which  all  the  states  had  possessed  in 
1787  they  believed  still  to  exist,  since  none 
of  their  political  teachers  had  dwelt  heavily 
upon  the  maxim  that  "this  Constitution  .  .  . 
shall  be  the  supreme  Law  of  the  Land." 
Fear  of  aggression  upon  slavery  might  not; 
have  moved  them,  but  should  coercive  means 
be  used  to  hold  the  lower  South  in  the  Union* 
such  attack  upon  the  cherished  sovereignty/ 
of  states  was  likely  to  drive  them  to  secede.^ 
The  four  border  states  —  Delaware,  ..Mary 
land,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri  —  were  still  •  '• 
more  luke  w  aTffl.  lo  sla  v  ery  .  Financial  interest 
in  slavery  decreased  steadily  to  the  North, 
and  these  states,  bordering  upon  free  states, 
regarded  slaves  as  only  one  among  many 
forms  of  property.  There  was  sufficient 
industrialism  among  them  for  them  to  have 


SECESSION  37 

a  different  view  of  the  Union  than  prevailed 
south  of  the  Potomac.  What  course  they 
would  follow  was  problematic  until  1863. 
Both  sides  hoped  to  retain  their  support, 
while  their  uncertainty  did  much  to  shape 
the  policies  of  Lincoln's  first  administration. 

On  February  1,  1861,  seven  states  had 
announced  their  withdrawal  from  the  Union. 
Six  of  them  met  by  their  delegates  in  con 
vention  at  Montgomery,  Alabama,  on  Feb 
ruary  4,  to  form  a  Constitution  for  the  new 
Confederacy  which  they  proposed  to  erect. 
Separatist  though  they  were,  they  had  no 
idea  of  maintaining  severally  their  independ 
ence.  Their  repugnance  was  not L  to^junipn, 
but  to  aTJnion  in  whiclC'ffii^constitiiled  a 
minority:  ineir  men  of  vision  looked  for- 
ward  to  a  southern  Confederacy  embracing 
all  the  slave-holding  states  and  perhaps 
including  the  states  of  the  upper  Mississippi 
Valley.  They  failed  to  see  that  the  railroads 
had  substituted  artificial  routes  for  the  well- 
known  natural  highways  of  the  Ohio  and  the 
Mississippi.  But  whether  they  enticed  the 
Northwest  from  the  Union  or  not,  slavery 
was  their  fundamental  basis.  The  "corner 
stone"  of  the  new  republic,  said  Alexander 
H.  Stephens,  its  vice-president,  was  the  great 
truth  that  the  negro  is  inferior  to  the  white 
man,  and  that  slavery  is  his  natural  condition. 

The  formation  of  the  Confederate  Consti 
tution  was  an  easy  matter.  In  ability  and 
experience  its  framers  had  no  superiors  in 


S3  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  South.  They  represented,  not  a  con 
spiracy  of  selfish  traitors,  but  a  popular 
uprising  that  had  no  doubts  as  to  the  right 
eousness  of  the  cause.  Long  familiarity  with 
the  procedure  of  state  governments,  of  Con 
gress,  and  the  executive  departments  at 
Washington,  made  them  able  to  adapt  the 
old  Constitution  to  the  new  needs  in  a  few 
days.  After  they  had  affirmed  the  right  to 
property  in  slaves,  asserted  the  special  doc 
trine  of  state  sovereignty,  and  forbidden  the 
enactment  of  a  protective  tariff,  there  were 
few  changes  which  they  desired  to  make. 
When  the  provisional  president,  Jefferson 
Davis  of  Mississippi,  undertook  to  put  the 
new  frame  of  government  into  operation, 
he  found  abundant  administrative  experi 
ence  ready  to  be  drawn  upon.  On  February 
18,  the  provisional  government  was  formally 
inaugurated  at  Montgomery.  Departments 
of  state,  treasury,  war,  navy,  justice,  and 
post  office  were  speedily  organized,  and  before 
a  hand  had  been  lifted  to  check  secession, 
the  new  Confederate  States  of  America 
existed  as  a  state,  —  within  or  without  the 
United  States,  as  the  event  should  prove. 


CHAPTER 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

JAMES  SggHA^AN,  fifteenth  President  of 
the  United  States,  had  been  representative 
and  senator,  minister  to  the  court  of  St.  fli^ 
James  and  secretary  of  state,  before  he 
defeated  John  C.  Fremont  in  1856,  and  ac 
ceded  to  the  chief  magistracy.  Having  much 
experience  in  public  affairs,  great  skill  in 
local  politics,  and  long  association  with  the 
other  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party,  he 
had  none  of  that  ignorance  which  made 
many  northerners  unfair  judges  of  the  con 
duct  and  motives  of  the  southerner.  His 
judicial  temperament  restrained  him  from 
emotional  excess  in  either  direction.  He 
inclined  to  be  affected  more  by  the  unre 
strained  inaccuracies  of  the  abolitionists 
than  by  the  ethical  question  of  slavery. 
From  long  co-operation  with  the  leaders  of 
the  South  he  had  come  to  judge  them  kindly. 
His  legal  experience  left  him  doubtful  as  to 
the  coercive  powers  of  the  Union,  and  sym 
pathetic  with  those  who  had  been  driven,  he 
believed,  to  desperate  and  unjustifiable  ex 
tremes  by  the  attack  upon  their  social  order. 

39 


40  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Too  old  to  create  or  execute  vigorous  policies, 
feeling  keenly  the  unfairness  of  the  attacks 
upon  the  South,  construing  the  Constitution 
strictly  in  all  its  bearings,  he  was  at  the  close 
of  an  unsatisfactory  administration  when 
the  election  of  1860  brought  the  downfall 
of  his  party  and  gave  the  national  govern 
ment  over  to  the  Republicans. 

Even  if  Buchanan  had  held  an  enlarged 
view  of  the  power  of  the  government,  there 
is  little  that  he  could  have  done  in  the  four 
months  between  the  election  and  the  inaug 
uration  of  Lincoln.  Congress  was  in  session 
nearly  all  the  time,  with  power  to  block  at 
pleasure.  Unless  it  enlarged  the  powers  of 
the  President,  he  could  do  nothing.  Upon  it 
rested  the  chief  responsibility  for  providing 
the  machinery  for  enforcing  the  laws,  should 
they  be  violated.  Yet  it  remained  indifferent 
to  this  obligation,  and  until  near  the  end  of 
the  session  was  actually  under  the  influence 
of  those  southern  leaders  who  were  shortly 
to  take  their  place  at  Richmond  or  in  the 
field.  Federal  officials  were  resigning  through 
out  the  South,  and  when  the  Senate  neg 
lected  to  confirm  the  appointment  of  their 
successors,  the  President  was  helpless.  Yet 
there  is  littlejbhat  any  Congress^coujd  have 
done  to  prevent  secession.  UulM  n-sislnnce 
to  the  law  occurred,  the  pretended  with 
drawal  from  the  Union  had  no  standing  either 
under  or  against  the  Constitution.  Freedom 
to  meet,  to  organize,  to  talk,  were  and  had 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  41 

been  dear  to  the  American  imagination. 
Even  northern  extremists  would  have  been 
slow  to  give  real  grievance  to  the  South  by 
interfering  with  its  freedom  of  expression, 
and  many  took  the  southern  conduct  so 
lightly  that  its  possibilities  were  discounted. 

It  was  no  new  thing  for  the  North  to  hear 
the  South  complain  and  threaten  secession. 
The  United  States  had  become  so  callous 
to  murmurings  that  had  never  materialized, 
that  their  repetition  was  undervalued  in  1860 
by  those  who  made  as  well  as  those  who 
heard  them.  Until  election  day  few  north 
erners  believed  that  the  South  would  fulfil 
its  promise.  If  South  Carolina  did  secede,  as 
she  had  nullified  in  1832,  it  was  a  fair  guess 
that  she  would  allow  herself  to  be  coaxed 
back  into  the  Union  and  rewarded  for  her 
grumbling  by  a  larger  share  of  privilege. 
Even  in  the  South  there  was  little  JadidLthat 
it  would  l)c  necessary  to  carry  out  the  throat 
to  its  rigorous  extreme.  The  North  was 
thought  to  be  timid  or  low-spirited.  It 
would  either  yield  the  point,  or  allow  seces 
sion  to  occur  without  a  fight.  The  individ 
ual  was  rare  on  either  side  who  counted  on 
secession  followed  by  a  war. 

The  first  effect  of  the  events  of  December, 
1860,  and  January,  1861,  was  as  might  have 
been  foreseen.  The  northern  extremist  fell 
under  a  cloud.  The  abolitionist  was  charged 
with  having  caused  the  trouble.  Democrats, 
old  line  Whigs,  and  even  cautious  Republicans 


42  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

took  occasion  to  throw  the  blame  where 
Buchanan  threw  it  in  his  annual  message, 
upon  the  "long-continued  and  intemperate 
interference  of  the  Northern  people  with  the 
question  of  slavery  in  the  Southern  States." 
In  Congress  the  compromiser  was  in  evidence. 
The  responsibility  for  the  failure  of  Con 
gress  to  repeat  the  attempts  of  1820  and 
1850  in  a  general  slavery  compromise,  rests 
upon  the  shoulders  of  the  president-elect. 
From  the  start  the  committees  in  both 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  realized 
that  no  compromise  could  stand  without  the 
concurrence  of  those  Republican  leaders 
who  were  to  have  complete  charge  of  the 
government  after  March  4,  1861.  Some 
what  frightened  by  their  success  and  the 
demonstration  it  had  provoked  from  the 
South,  these  were  disposed  to  yield,  and 
accept  amendments,  guaranteeing  slavery 
in  the  states  and  perpetuating  it  in  a  portion 
or  all  of  the  territories.  Lincoln  himself  was 
willing  to  record  in  an  amendment  what  he 
believed  already  to  be  the  law,  —  that  no 
interference  with  the  domestic  institutions 
of  the  states  should  be  allowed.  But  when 
the  southern  congressmen,  as  the  price  of 
Union,  demanded  the  territories,  Laacoln, 
inexperienced  country  lawyer  though  he 
was,  stood  by  the  main  platform  of  his 
party  —  the  right  of  Congress  to  legislate 
over  the  territories  and  to  exclude  slavery 
therefrom  —  and  refused  to  be  moved  by 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  43 

persuasion  or  menace.  Unwilling  to  support 
any  plan  which  curtailed  this  power,  Lin 
coln  became  responsible  for  the  failure  of 
the  compromise,  and,  in  a  sense,  made  the 
decision  that  plunged  the  country  into  war. 
If  slavery  was  right,  and  if  the  southern 
minority  was  justified  in  its  determination 
to  control  or  break  the  nation,  he  made  a 
mistake. 

For  three  months,  Congress  worked  over 
the  forlorn  hope  of  compromise;  a  peace 
convention  deliberated  in  informal  session; 
public  opinion  wavered  from  side  to  side; 
and  the  single  sure  and  responsible  group  of 
men  in  the  United  States  proceeded  in  the 
organization  of  the  Confederacy.  Buchanan 
believed  that  there  was  no  power  in  the  gov 
ernment  to  check  secession  by  force.  Cer 
tainly  Congress  had  given  him  no  aid. 
Tentative  in  his  policies,  a  northern  secre 
tary  resigned  from  his  cabinet  because  he 
was  too  lenient;  a  Mississippian  went  out 
because  he  was  too  severe.  Even  on  the 
immediate  question  of  retaining  United  States 
property  in  the  South,  custom  houses,  forts, 
navy  yards,  and  the  like,  his  course  was  un 
certain  until  nearly  the  end  of  his  adminis 
tration.  He  had  no  doubt  as  to  his  power  in 
this  detail,  but  held  off  from  giving  added 
provocation  which  might  prevent  a  com 
promise.  Not  unlike  Webster,  who  in  his 
old  age  made  concessions  to  slavery  to  save 
the  Union,  Buchanan  sacrificed  his  standing 


44  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

in  popular  repute  to  his  belief  that  concilia 
tion  was  as  yet  better  than  force. 

And  so  the  spring  of  1861  advanced,  with 
indecision  on  every  side  except  that  of  the 
Confederacy.  Mr.  Davis  proceeded  with  the 
organization  of  his  government  but  put  off 
the  day  of  conflict  of  jurisdiction  as  long  as 
possible.  The  United  States  mails  ran  un 
molested  through  the  South  until  nearly 
the  end  of  May.  In  the  North  there  was  no 
coherent  public  opinion  in  the  first  three 
months  of  the  year.  Leaders,  most  of  them 
upset  and  nervous,  ranged  the  whole  dis 
tance  from  coercion  at  any  cost  to  thank 
fulness  at  the  riddance.  Followers  of  the 
Confederacy  came  to  believe  that  secession 
would  be  peaceable  and  that  the  new  Presi 
dent  would  not  attempt  to  interfere. 

On  March  4  Abraham  Lincoln  was  in 
augurated  despite  the  predictions  that  he 
would  be  murdered  or  that  the  ceremony 
would  be  otherwise  prevented.  Since  the 
election,  he  had  remained  quietly  in  his 
home  in  Springfield,  listening  to  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  advice  and  opinion,  but  refraining 
from  new  utterances  in  public  that  might 
embarrass  Buchanan  or  himself.  It  does 
not  appear  that  he  worked  out  any  policy 
in  detail.  As  time  went  on,  men  learned 
that  he  had  no  set  rules  of  administration, 
but  met  his  business,  piece  by  piece,  settling 
it  as  nearly  in  accord  with  his  fundamental 
convictions  as  might  be.  When  the  editors 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  45 

asked  what  he  proposed  to  do,  he  referred 
them  to  his  speeches.  He  did  not  conceal 
from  his  intimates  his  belief  that  slavery 
was  wrong.  It  was  too  late  to  prevent 
southerners  from  dwelling  upon  his  most 
important  public  phrases:  "I  believe  this 
government  cannot  endure  permanently  half 
slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved,  —  I  do  not  expect  the 
house  to  fall,  —  but  I  do  expect  that  it  will 
cease  to  be  divided."  And  it  was  to  be  ex 
pected  that  they  would  doubt  the  sincerity 
of  his  disclaimers  of  power  in  the  govern 
ment  to  touch  slavery  in  the  states.  But 
although  he  refrained  from  public  discus 
sion,  he  placed  himself  in  touch  with  all  the 
elements  in  and  out  of  his  party.  The  sug 
gestion  that  he  ward  off  suspicion  by  taking 
into  the  cabinet  a  southerner  or  two,  he 
followed  up  by  a  vain  search  for  the  honest 
southerner  who  would  take  the  place. 
Modest  and  never  opinionated,  he  sought  for 
the  men  who  could  help  him  make  a  cabinet, 
regardless  of  their  attitude  towards  himself. 
Yet  he  kept  an  open  mind  about  some 
of  his  final  selections  until  the  eve  of  the 
inauguration. 

The  fears  of  an  interrupted  inauguration 
proved  unfounded.  General  Scott  filled  the 
capital  with  troops,  and  waited  nervously 
while  the  ceremony  progressed.  What  Lin 
coln  was  to  say,  aroused  as  much  interest 
as  whether  he  would  be  allowed  to  say  it; 


46  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

but  whatever  it  should  be,  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  had  determined  that  his  own  loyalty 
to  the  United  States  should  be  equally 
noticeable  and  pronounced.  When  the  pres 
ident-elect  looked  helplessly  around  the 
stand  for  a  place  to  put  his  hat,  his  defeated 
rival  reached  out  and  held  it  while  the  in 
augural  was  delivered.  There  was  nothing 
sensational  in  the  address  and  nothing  new. 
Quietly  and  carefully  Lincoln  reiterated  his 
pledges  that  he  had  "no  purpose,  directly 
or  indirectly  to  interfere  with  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists." 
But  he  went  on  to  assure  his  fellow  citizens 
that  "in  view  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
laws  the  Union  is  unbroken,  and  to  the  ex 
tent  of  my  ability  I  shall  take  care,  as  the 
Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon 
me,  that  the  laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully 
executed  in  all  the  States."  It  was  clear 
from  the  tenor  of  his  words  that  there  could 
be  no  peaceable  secession  unless  a  divided 
opinion  in  the  North  should  impede  his 
actions.  If  the  North  should  sustain  him 
there  must  be  a  fight. 

The  national  government,  whose  direction 
Mr.  Lincoln  now  assumed,  was  far  from 
perfect  and  fell  below  the  standard  of  the 
next  generation.  The  idea  of  appointment 
for  merit  and  the  utility  of  expert  service 
had  not  yet  reached  the  popular  mind. 
Every  American  citizen  was  still  believed, 
in  the  rampant  democracy  of  the  middle- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  47 

century,  to  be  fitted  for  any  job  he  could 
get.  Since  the  inauguration  of  Andrew 
Jackson  each  new  administration  had  wit 
nessed  a  federal  house-cleaning,  and  a  new 
distribution  of  the  spoils  of  office.  This 
substitution  of  new  and  inexperienced  clerks 
for  those  of  greater  knowledge  had  often 
embarrassed  administrations  before  1860, 
when  the  change  was  only  from  one  Demo 
cratic  regime  to  another  of  the  same  faith. 
A  clean  sweep  was  to  be  anticipated  when 
the  radical  change  from  Democrat  to  Re 
publican  took  place,  —  so  clean  that  a  keen 
Irish  journalist  thought  not  a  few  of  the 
federal  officials  in  the  South  were  quickened 
in  their  devotion  to  the  Confederacy  by  their 
certainty  of  being  dismissed  from  the  service 
of  the  United  States.  Lincoln's  cabinet 
revealed  both  the  strength  and  the  weakness 
of  the  prevailing  system. 

William  H.  Seward  was  invited  to  become 
secretary  of  state.  His  high  fitness  for  the 
post  could  not  be  questioned,  and  he  came 
well  within  the  tradition  that  this  office,  at 
least,  must  be  filled  by  a  man  of  parts.  He 
was  regarded,  and  regarded  himself,  as  the 
real  head  of  the  Republican  party,  and  had 
been  defeated  in  the  convention  only  by  his 
over-prominence.  In  the  cabinet  he  met  and 
tested  strength  with  another  of  the  defeated 
factional  chiefs,  Chase  of  Ohio. 

Of  the  three  strong  men  of  the  cabinet, 
Seward  stood  easily  the  head,  and  was  a 


48  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

creditable  appointment  upon  any  theory. 
Salmon  P.  Chase  had  no  qualifications  for  the 
treasury  except  his  unquestioned  loyalty, 
his  power  in  the  Northwest,  and  his  good 
general  ability.  His  appointment  to  the 
most  technical  post  in  the  government  was 
purely  political,  and  was  successful  only  by 
accident.  Yet  few  of  his  contemporaries 
questioned  the  wisdom  of  placing  a  man 
unskilled  in  finance  in  charge  of  the  intri 
cate  processes  of  national  credit.  That  he 
succeeded  is,  after  all,  proof  that  the  Ameri 
can  idea  is  not  wholly  wrong.  His  appoint 
ment,  indicating  Lincoln's  failure  to  connect 
special  skill  with  specific  duties,  was  far 
better  than  the  first  appointment  to  the  war 
department. 

Simon  Cameron,  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  secre 
tary  of  war,  was  given  his  portfolio  as  the 
result  of  a  political  deal,  apparently  unau 
thorized  by  the  president-elect,  but  not 
shocking  to  the  political  ethics  of  1800. 
In  control  of  the  Pennsylvania  delegation, 
a  "favorite  son"  before  the  convention,  he 
had  been  bought  off  by  the  tender  of  a  seat 
in  the  cabinet.  His  incapacity,  if  not  worse, 
was  notable  even  in  a  day  of  amateur  ad 
ministrators;  and  when  he  was  permitted  to 
resign,  his  chief  filled  his  place  with  his 
third  great  secretary,  Edwin  M.  Stanton. 
It  made  no  difference  to  Lincoln  that  Seward 
and  Chase  had  been  his  rivals,  or  that  Stan- 
ton,  a  Union  Democrat,  had  hated  and  de- 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  49 

spised  him.  These  were  men  of  force  and 
influence  in  a  time  when  it  was  quite  as  im 
portant  to  fill  the  government  with  men 
who  could  command  a  majority  in  the  North 
as  to  run  the  government  smoothly  and 
economically.  The  other  seats  in  the  cabinet 
were  distributed  where  they  would  do  the 
most  good,  to  citizens  of  Connecticut,  In 
diana,  Missouri,  and  Maryland.  The  aim 
of  the  PrpisjHffflt.  wfl-s  t.o  jrnjt.p.  all  shaojeTtjf" 
Union  sentiment  that  his  main  purpose 
might  be  carried  out.  Scward  doubted  the 
wisdom  of  the  "compound  cabinet."  "I 
was  at  one  time  on  the  point  of  refusing," 
he  wrote  his  wife,  "nay,  I  did  refuse  for  a 
time  to  hazard  myself  in  the  experiment." 

In  the  confusion  resulting  from  the  change 
of  administration  it  was  several  weeks  before 
definite  action  could  be  reached  on  any  of 
the  problems  which  Buchanan  had  handed 
over  to  his  successors.  New  officers  had  to 
learn  something  of  their  work,  the  most 
pressing  subordinate  appointments  had  to 
be  made,  the  cabinet  had  yet  to  find  which 
of  his  leaders  was  the  chief,  and  public 
opinion  was  still  far  from  unity  on  any 
point.  In  legal  power  Lincoln  was  exactly 
where  his  predecessor  had  been,  but  Con 
gress  had  gone  home,  to  remain  there  for  the 
long  recess,  and  unless  he  invited  it  he  had 
no  immediate  interference  to  fear.  In  the 
intervals  between  the  visits  of  clamorous 
office-seekers  he  devoted  himself  to  study 


50  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  the  existing  situation  and  to  sounding  the 
political  temper  of  the  Union. 

The  retention  of  the  public  property  of 
the  United  States  presented  the  earliest  con 
crete  problem  for  the  cabinet  of  Lincoln. 
Buchanan  had  allowed  the  southern  arsenals 
and  forts  to  be  seized  by  the  states  in  which 
they  lay,  and  had  permitted  officers  in  the 
army  and  civil  service  to  deliver  the  prop 
erty  of  the  United  States,  which  they  were 
under  oath  to  guard,  to  agents  of  the  Con 
federacy.  He  had  done  this  rather  than 
raise  new  issues  by  a  forcible  retention,  and 
if  compromise  measures  had  brought  back 
the  South  there  could  have  been  little  criti 
cism  of  it.  Uncertain  as  to  the  willingness  of 
the  United  States  to  back  him  up,  he  had 
played  for  time.  On  the  inauguration  of 
Lincoln  opinion  was  still  unformed,  though 
the  clear  analysis  in  his  inaugural  brought 
some  change  during  the  ensuing  weeks. 
The  first  vote  of  his  cabinet,  March  15, 
favored  the  continuation  of  Buchanan's 
policy.  Until  nearly  the  end  of  March,  the 
commanding  general  of  the  army,  Winfield 
Scott,  believed  the  southern  forts  could  not 
be  retained. 

The  forts  in  Charleston  harbor  were  by 
common  consent  accepted  as  the  test  case, 
and  had  figured  largely  in  secession  news 
since  Christmas,  1860.  Three  of  them  there 
were,  in  charge  of  a  trifling  garrison  of 
federal  troops,  commanded  by  a  southern 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  51 

officer,  Major  Robert  Anderson.  Their  de 
livery  had  been  demanded  by  South  Caro 
lina,  immediately  upon  the  passage  of  the 
ordinance  of  secession,  but  while  overtures 
for  their  surrender  were  making  at  Wash 
ington,  Anderson  abandoned  the  untenable 
Fort  Moultrie  and  moved  his  troops  to  the 
island  on  which  Fort  Sumter  lay.  Here,  on 
his  own  responsibility,  he  raised  his  flag, 
and  by  giving  notoriety  to  his  position  in 
creased  the  difficulty  for  the  administration 
which  should  abandon  him. 

Fort  Sumter  remained  the  centre  of  discus 
sion.  The  waverings  of  Buchanan's  cabinet 
respecting  it  ended  in  part  when  Buchanan 
determined,  on  December  31,  not  to  deal 
with  commissioners  from  the  seceding  states, 
and  agreed  a  few  days  later  to  try  to 
re-enforce  the  fort.  A  coasting  steamer,  the 
"Star  of  the  West,"  was  sent  from  New 
York  with  supplies,  since  the  garrison  was 
scantily  provided.  But  the  troops  of  South 
Carolina  fired  upon  the  steamer  as  she  en 
tered  the  harbor,  and  her  captain  brought 
her  back  to  New  York.  The  re-enforcement, 
thus  defeated  by  armed  resistance,  brought 
about  a  cabinet  crisis  and  a  group  of  new 
appointments,  after  which  Confederate  en 
croachments  were  fewer  until  the  end  of 
the  administration. 

Major  Anderson  was  still  hanging  on  to 
Fort  Sumter,  in  a  state  of  siege,  when  Lin 
coln  became  President,  and  his  support  or 


52  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

withdrawal  was  the  first  issue.  With  a  cabi 
net  voting  against  re-enforcement,  it  took  the 
President  a  month  to  reach  his  determination. 
Early  in  April  he  decided  that  rations  must 
be  sent  in  spite  of  the  menacing  presence  of 
a  South  Carolina  army  and  the  demands  of 
the  Confederate  commissioners.  Before  he 
could  induce  co-operation  among  the  members 
of  his  cabinet  the  determination  leaked  out, 
a  formal  demand  for  surrender,  made  by 
order  of  the  Confederate  government,  was 
delivered  to  Major  Anderson,  and,  early  on 
the  morning  of  April  12,  the  Charleston 
batteries  opened  fire.  For  a  day  and  a  half 
Anderson  held  out,  though  in  a  ramshackle 
fortress  with  few  rations  and  little  ammuni 
tion.  About  noon  on  the  13th,  with  barracks 
burning  and  the  garrison  in  imminent  dan 
ger  of  destruction,  he  accepted  overtures 
which  typified  the  disorderly  enthusiasm 
of  the  southern  cause.  A  former  senator 
from  Texas,  Wigfall  by  name,  was  in 
Charleston  as  an  unofficial  aide  to  General 
Beauregard.  Without  authority,  but  with 
the  zeal  of  a  volunteer,  Colonel  Wigfall  buc 
kled  a  sword  about  his  frock  coat,  forced 
a  negro  to  row  him  in  a  small  boat  to  the 
fort,  clambered  through  an  embrasure  with 
a  white  handkerchief  tied  to  his  sword,  and 
had  agreed  upon  terms  of  surrender  before 
the  arrival  of  a  formal  detail  of  officers  to 
demand  it.  \jOn  April  14,  according  to  the 
agreement,  Anderson  ran  up  his  flag  and 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  53 

saluted  it,  and  then  embarked  unmolested 
to  return  to  the  United  States,  his  only  loss 
of  life  being  one  private  killed  during  the 
salute. 

With  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  occurred  the 
first  clash  that  public  opinion  chose  to  notice, 
marking  a  victory  in  tactics  for  Lincoln. 
Both  he  and  Davis  had  hoped  that  if  con 
flict  must  come  it  might  occur  in  such  a  way 
as  to  hurt  the  other  cause  and  consolidate 
their  own.  Davis,  with  only  seven  states  in 
his  Confederacy  and  the  upper  South  yet 
undecided,  needed  such  a  crisis  as  would 
show  to  those  reluctant  slave  states  the  federal 
government  in  the  role  of  an  oppressor, 
trampling  upon  the  doctrine  of  state  rights. 
Liiifioln,  contrariwise,  strnYe.Jto_.axfiid ..  an 
appearance  of  coercion,  and  to  make  it 
clear  to  his  uncertain  North  that  enforce 
ment  of  the  law,  rather  than  war  against  a 
group  of  states,  was  his  determination.  The 
zeal  of  South  Carolina  here  lost  the  Con 
federacy  a  point.  Her  bombardment  pre 
ceded  the  arrival  of  re-enforcements  at  the 
fort,  instead  of  following  that  event,  and  was 
accepted  in  the  North  as  a  gratuitous  attack. 
At  once  there  appeared  a  new  certainty  of 
purpose.  None  could  deny  that  the  South 
meant  war,  that  it  had  made  the  first  attack, 
and  that  disunion  was  at  hand. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CIVIL   WAR 

No  officer  in  the  service  of  the  United 
States  or  the  Confederate  States,  in  April, 
1861,  had  seen,  in  one  time  or  place,  more 
than  three-fourths  of  the  little  regular  army. 
This  had  remained  for  years  near  16,000, 
and  aggregated  in  June,  1860,  16,006  officers 
and  men.  Yet  on  April  15,  1861,  President 
Lincoln  called  upon  the  states  for  75,000 
volunteers  to  enforce  the  laws  and  repossess 
the  property  of  the  United  States.  There 
was  no  general  officer  with  experience  ade 
quate  to  command  such  a  force,  no  machinery 
in  the  war  department,  under  its  incapable 
secretary,  to  feed,  clothe,  arm,  move,  or 
pay  it,  and  no  plan  in  the  mind  of  any  re 
sponsible  official  for  its  immediate  use.  The 
lawss  wrhich  had  been  violated  were  to  be 
enforced  by  the  President,  using  those  powers 
which  the  Constitution  gives  to  him  in  case 
of  armed  insurrection;  but  Lincoln's  greatest 
chance  of  speedy  success  in  the  restoration  of 
order  lay  in  the  disorganization  of  the  op 
posing  army  which,  though  already  several 
weeks  old,  was  nearly  as  chaotic  as  his  own. 

54 


CIVIL  WAR  55 

The  United  States  was  not  a  military 
nation,  though  it  possessed  in  abundance  the 
materials  which  go  to  make  one.  With  a 
vigorous  and  growing  population,  with  great 
potential  wealth  and  light  taxation,  it  needed 
only  a  motive  and  training  to  evolve  not 
one  great  war  machine,  but  two.  Until  186o 
fighting  was  highly  experimental^  neither 
government  possessing  a  reliable  force  in 
either  officers  or  men.  After  that  year,  fight 
ing  was  professional  on  both  sides,  affording 
to  military  experts  processes  for  emulation 
rather  than  examples  to  be  avoided.  Yet 
prior  to  Lincoln's  call  for  volunteers  a 
prophecy  as  to  the  outcome  of  the  struggle 
might  have  been  undertaken. 

The  states  of  the  Union,  in  1860,  extended 
to  the  western  border  of  Texas,  with  one 
complete  tier  of  states  beyond  the  Mississippi, 
and  two  outlying  states  upon  the  Pacific 
Coast.  It  contained  an  aggregate  of  about 
31,000,000  inhabitants,  whose  proportions 
in  the  hostile  camps  depended  upon  the 
intensity  of  grievance  and  the  plausibility 
of  statesmen.  If  the  Confederacy  had  carried 
with  it  not  only  the  seven  states  of  the  lower 
South,  (  and  the  four  of  the  upper  South 
which  followed  speedily  upon  the  call  for 
troops,  but  all  the  fifteen  slave-holding  states, 
the  disproportion  of  population  would  have 
been  much  less.  But  as  the  lines  were  finally 
drawn,  twenty-two  of  the  states  of  1860, 
and  part  of  a  twenty-third,  remained  with 


56  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  Union  and  massed  a  population  of 
22,700,000  against  the  8,700,000  who  occu 
pied  the  eleven  states  of  the  Confederacy. 
More  uneven  were  the  figures  of  white  in 
habitants,  since  in  the  Union  there  remained 
nearly  22,000,000  of  these,  while  the  Con 
federacy  had  but  5,096,000.  With  more  than 
four  white  citizens  north  of  the  Potomac  to 
every  white  person  in  the  South,  the  contest 
was  unequal  at  the  outset.  That  it  could 
have  been  undertaken  cheerfully  and  with 
belief  in  ultimate  success  by  the  Confederate 
leaders  excites  amazement. 

In  geographic  relations  the  South  was  and 
appeared  to  be  somewhat  better  placed  to 
resist  invasion  than  the  North  was  to  exe 
cute  it.  A  compact,  well-watered  territory 
with  abundance  of  seaports  and  penetrating 
rivers,  the  South  could  protect  its  military 
frontier  with  a  minimum  of  exertion.  Wait 
ing  for  the  attack,  ,and  repelling  it  on  the 
border,  it  could  manage  on  a  smaller  war 
budget  and  a  slighter  commissariat  to  defend 
itself.  The  North  had  longer  distances  to 
traverse  to  reach  the  fighting  line,  and  was 
always  operating  from  outside  the  defences, 
whereas  the  South  moved  in  the  short  line 
from  the  centre  to  the  circumference. 

This  geographic  advantage  took  a  leading 
place  in  the  southern  mind  among  the  causes 
contributing  to  success.  It  was  of  value 
throughout  the  war,  though  its  utility  had 
been  lessened  by  industrial  facts  with  which 


58  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  South  was  not  intimately  familiar.  The 
old  North  had  possessed  inadequate  routes 
of  communication,  and  the  Northwest,  whose 
sympathy  the  South  hoped  for,  had  been  a 
section  by  itself,  more  dependent  on  the  South 
then  on  the  East.  But  in  the  ten  years 
before  secession  the  railroads  had  appeared. 
The  South  thought  of  its  internal  water 
routes  and  the  aid  they  could  derive  from 
local  railways.  All  the  seaboard  states  were 
connected  by  rail,  and  from  them  trunk 
lines  crossed  the  hills  of  Virginia  and  those  of 
Georgia,  converging  upon  Chattanooga  and 
continuing  west  to  the  Mississippi  River  at 
Memphis.  North  and  south  the  Mississippi 
was  paralleled,  by  the  Mobile  and  Ohio,  and 
its  branches.  Kentucky  and  Virginia  had 
local  roads  and,  should  Maryland  secede,  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  would  bring  an  added 
trunk  line  within  the  Confederate  territory. 

But  these  southern  roads,  important  as 
they  were,  had  changed  the  facts  of  geog 
raphy  less  than  those  of  the  North.  Be 
sides  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio,  which  was 
retained  in  Union  hands,  the  North  had 
trunk  lines  in  the  Pennsylvania,  Erie,  New 
York  Central,  and  Grand  Trunk  systems. 
The  Ohio  River  was  touched  by  northwestern 
railways  at  Pittsburg,  Steubenville,  Wheeling, 
Marietta,  Portsmouth,  Cincinnati,  Lawrence- 
burg,  Jeffersonville,  New  Albany,  Evans- 
ville,  and  Cairo.  Without  these  lines  the 
North  could  hardly  have  hoped  to  crush  the 


CIVIL  WAR  *» 

Confederacy:  with  them  the  disadvantage 
of  distance  was  compensated  for  by  the 
speed  of  movement. 

The  South  had  some  advantage  in  geog 
raphy.  In  industry,  its  chance  depended 
upon  keeping  its  seaports  open  and  getting 
its  cotton  to  the  European  market.  Could 
this  be  done,  the  proceeds  of  the  cotton  would 
keep  the  government  in  munitions  and  food, 
but  should  the  ports  be  closed  the  South  had 
few  manufactures  and  could  not  be  self- 
sustaining.  The  North  was  a  manufacturing 
community.  Not  yet  self-sufficient,  it  had 
the  beginnings  of  most  of  its  industries,  and 
need  not  suffer  even  if  all  its  foreign  com 
merce  were  destroyed.  Yankee  ingenuity 
had  begun  to  provide  labor-saving  inven 
tions.  The  introduction  of  the  reaper  into 
the  northwest  wheat  fields  was  a  national 
gain.  Said  the  secretary  of  war,  in  1861: 
"The  reaper  is  to  the  North  what  slavery 
is  to  Ine  South.  By  taking  the  places  of 
regiments  of  young  men  in  the  Western 
harvest  fields,  it  releases  them  to  do  battle 
for  the  Union  at  the  front,  and  at  the  same 
time  keeps  up  the  supply  of  bread  for  the 
nation  and  the  nation's  armies."  Yet  the 
reaper  was  only  one  out  of  many  inventions 
which  made  the  northerner  more  effective, 
man  for  man,  than  his  southern  fellow  citizen. 

Based  on  its  manufactures,  the  North 
had  wealth,  taxable  values  and  credit  in 
excess  of  those  of  the  South,  and  far  greater 


60  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

than  even  well-informed  southerners  believed. 
From  the  financial  panic  of  1857  the  South 
had  escaped,  since  she  possessed  few  of  the 
institutions  that  could  be  affected  most  by 
industrial  depression, —  banks,  railways,  fac 
tories,  and  cities.  In  every  aspect  of  her 
life,  the  lack  of  ready  capital  showed  itself. 
The  North,  however,  with  a  more  complex 
economic  organization,  had  suffered  griev 
ously,  and  had  presented  what  the  South 
read  as  a  lesson  upon  the  evils  of  industrial 
society.  Sensible  southerners  believed  that 
the  sufferings  of  the  North  and  the  immunity 
of  the  South  proved  that  a  society  organized 
on  the  plantation  and  slavery  was  safer 
and  wealthier  than  one  based  upon  manu 
factures  and  industry.  Upon  this  belief  many 
founded  their  hopes  for  a  successful  outcome. 

Convinced  that  its  country  was  admirably 
situated  for  defence,  that  its  social  order 
was  not  subject  to  financial  disturbance,  that 
in  the  cotton  crop  it  had  an  unquenchable 
source  of  revenue,  and,  finally,  that  one 
healthy  southerner  could  lick  five  Yankees, 
the  Confederacy  faced  the  overwhelming 
numbers  of  the  North  without  fear. 

The  firing  upon  Fort  Sumter  and  the  call 
for  troops  on  April  15,  1861,  gave  a  text 
throughout  the  North,  and  made  it  forget 
that  it  had  ever  been  undecided.  The 
Union  was  attacked,  and  volunteers  crowded 
around  their  local  leaders  to  demand  en 
listment.  The  wires  to  Washington  were 


CIVIL  WAR  61 

crowded  with  tenders  of  regiments  and 
companies,  and  sturdy  Governor  Andrew  of 
Massachusetts,  who  had  drilled  his  militia 
all  the  spring,  had  only  to  call  them  to  their 
armories  and  start  them  south.  Not  only 
Americans,  educated  to  a  confidence  in  the 
Union  and  additionally  excited  by  a  hatred 
of  slavery,  but  newcomers  of  the  last  two 
decades,  shouldered  the  inusket  and  learned 
the  manual.  Out  of  the  eastern  cities  came 
the  Irish,  driven  from  their  old  home  by 
starvation  and  induced  to  enter  the  American 
militia  by  the  deep  hope  of  a  future  war  for 
Ireland,  and  now  paying  for  their  military 
tuition.  Out  of  the  western  cities,  Cincin 
nati,  Chicago,  and  St.  Louis,  came  the 
Germans,  immigrants  of  '48  and  later,  many 
of  them  trained  as  soldiers  in  the  Father 
land,  and  all  inspired  by  an  abiding  spirit 
of  liberty  and  nationality.  Home-born  or 
foreign,  the  enlistment  went  beyond  the 
call,  and  Lincoln  accepted  90,000  without 
satisfying  the  enthusiastic  response  to  his 
proclamation. 

The  management  of  this  army,  whose 
numbers  continued  to  grow  until"  it  finally 
included  more  than  1,000,000  men,  fell  upon 
a  war  department  accustomed  only  to  a 
handful  of  troops  and  the  routine  of  peace. 
The  regular  army,  necessarily  called  upon 
for  officers,  was  disorganized  by  numerous 
resignations  of  men  from  the  South  who 
elected  to  go  with  their  states.  The  most 


62  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

promising  of  its  officers,  to  whom  even  was 
tendered  the  general  command,  was  Robert 
E.  Lee,  of  a  famous  Virginia  family,  whose 
loyalty  to  his  state,  in  a  cause  which  he  dis 
trusted,  deprived  the  Union  of  his  services. 
After  Lee,  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  com 
mander  of  the  Utah  expedition  of  1857,  was 
the  greatest  loss.  But  in  both  armies,  men 
trained  at  West  Point  dominated  through 
out  the  war,  although  they  formed  only  a 
small  fraction  of  all  the  officers  employed. 
The  professional  soldier  showed  his  vast 
superiority  to  the  volunteer  in  the  per 
formance  of  his  trade.  Volunteer  officers 
rose  to  high  rank,  but  few  of  them  stand 
among  the  generals  of  proved  reputation  in 
1865.  Men  who  had  resigned  from  the  army 
before  the  war,  frequently  to  use  their  tal 
ents  in  railway  enterprises,  asked  for  reap- 
pointment  and  were  freely  given  commands 
in  the  great  organization  camps,  where  they 
applied  their  experience  to  the  training  of 
raw  recruits. 

As  the  regiments  poured  into  Washington, 
the  national  capital  speedily  became  the 
greatest  of  the  camps.  Partly  from  senti 
mental  reasons  it  was  the  centre  of  opera 
tions.  But  sentiment  was  re-enforced  by 
military  necessity,  since  just  across  the 
Potomac  were  the  Confederate  outposts, 
and  even  north  of  that  river  conditions  were 
insecure.  Baltimore  was  rebellious,  and  the 
secession  of  Maryland  was  not  impossible. 


CIVIL  WAR  63 

The  safety  of  Washington  was  the  first  mili 
tary  problem  of  the  war,  and  remained 
among  the  most  difficult  until  the  end. 

Upon  a  loyal  Virginian,  a  testy  old  veteran 
of  two  wars,  Major-General  Win£eld  Scott, 
the  preliminary  organization  of  the  Union 
army  developed.  On  the  date  of  the  call  for 
troops  there  had  been  seven  states  in  the 
Confederacy.  Four  more  —  North  Carolina, 
Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas  —  seceded 
soon  after  the  call,  voicing  their  indigna 
tion  at  the  proposal  to  use  their  militia  to 
coerce  their  fellow  states.  The  strategic 
problem  from  April  to  July,  after  the  de 
fence  of  Washington,  was  the  control  of  the 
border  states,  of  which  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
and  Missouri  were  most  important.  The 
future  of  these  was  in  doubt,  and  it  will 
always  be  uncertain  whether  their  ultimate 
loyalty  was  due  the  more  to  their  convictions 
or  to  their  nearness  to  the  North  which  made 
coercion  easy.  To  these  the  President,  act 
ing  upon  the  maxim  of  one  of  his  successors, 
"spoke  softly  and  carried  a  big  stick." 
Appealing  in  every  way  to  their  Union 
citizens,  he  mobilized  troops  at  strategic, 
points  —  Washington,  Cincinnati,  and  St. 
toiiis — where  secession  tendencies  could  most 
easily  be  checked.  The  arsenal  at  Harper's 
Ferry  had  been  lost  at  the  outset,  but  Mary 
land  was  held  under  a  control  that  improved 
as  time  went  on. 

At  the  extreme  west  of  the  line  of  the 


64  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

border  states,  Missouri  was  the  seat  of  a 
civil  war  of  her  own,  with  rival  state  govern 
ments  struggling  for  control,  and  both  fac 
tions  recognizing  the  strategic  value  of  St. 
Louis  and  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio.  Between 
Missouri  and  Virginia,  Kentucky  tried  to 
avoid  decision  by  proclaiming  a  neutrality 
that  assumed  a  degree  of  state  sovereignty 
quite  as  high  as  that  which  the  seceding 
states  maintained.  But,  hopeful  of  her  ulti 
mate  adherence,  the  Union  armies  tried  to 
respect  the  neutrality,  until  invasion  of 
Kentucky  by  a  Confederate  force  compelled 
a  counter  attack. 

All  along  the  line  regiments  were  collect 
ing  until,  in  December,  there  were  upwards 
of  600,000  men  in  camp.  Reputations  were 
rising  and  falling  in  the  process  of  weed 
ing  out  officers  and  proving  ability.  In  St. 
Louis,  in  the  summer,  Fremont  was  at  the 
height  of  his  power,  in  command  of  the  West 
and  joining  politics  to  war.  At  Cincinnati, 
in  the  late  spring,  a  young  regular,  G.  B. 
McClellan,  was  forcing  the  Ohio  volunteers 
into  shape.  In  front  of  Washington,  Mc 
Dowell  took  charge  of  the  new  regiments  as 
they  arrived  for  the  same  purpose. 

On  July  4,  1861,  the  confusion  at  Wash 
ington  was  increased  by  the  meeting  of  Con 
gress  in  special  session  to  provide  ways  and 
means  for  the  maintenance  of  the  armies. 
Thus  far  Lincoln  had  acted  upon  his  own 
responsibility  and  the  slender  powers^  given 


CIVIL  WAR  65 

by  the  old  militia  act  of  1795.  The  volun 
teer  army  had  already  begun  to  receive 
criticism  because  the  advance  on  Richmond 
had  not  yet  begun  and  Congress  added  to 
the  political  pressure  for  fighting  regardless 
of  preparation.  Even  the  President  thought 
the  army  no  worse  off  than  that  of  the  enemy, 
and  that  the  impatient  people  must  be  given 
a  sign  that  the  government  was  at  work  in 
their  behalf. 

Facing  Washington,  and  in  the  road  of  an 
advance  against  the  Confederate  capital,  at 
Richmond,  lay  a  considerable  army  that 
had  been  accumulating  while  the  troops 
were  forming  in  the  North.  The  Confed 
erate  government,  which  had  raised  it,  had 
escaped  some  of  the  embarrassments  that 
worried  Lincoln.  Jefferson  Davis  was  him 
self  a  West  Pointer,  with  long  experience  in 
both  the  army  and  the  war  department.  He 
had  no  existing  army  from  which  the  old 
and  incompetent  senior  officers  must  be 
eliminated.  He  was  sustained  unanimously 
by  his  people,  once  secession  was  a  fact. 
From  the  former  United  States  officers  who 
applied  he  could  select  commanders  as  he 
needed  them,  with  a  discrimination  founded 
upon  personal  knowledge  of  nearly  every 
officer  who  had  left  West  Point  for  thirty 
years.  Lincoln  was  forced  to  rely  upon 
hearsay  as  to  reputations.  Davis  knew  them 
all  a^  first  hand.  And  in  addition  to  his 
superior  skill  and  knowledge,  Davis  was 


66  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

under  less  political  pressure  than  his  oppo 
nent  and  was  forced  to  reward  fewer  local 
politicians  with  commissions  in  the  army. 
Moving  the  capital  to  Richmond  early  in 
June,  Davis  was  defended  by  two  armies, 
one  under  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  in  the  Shenan- 
doah  Valley,  above  Harper's  Ferry,  and  the 
other  under  Beauregard,  the  hero  of  Fort 
Sumter,  who  lay  along  the  Potomac  threat 
ening  Washington. 

Against  these  raw  Confederate  forces, 
McDowell  was  compelled  to  move  his  equally 
raw  Union  army,  while  members  of  Congress, 
on  July  21,  drove  out  along  the  road  to 
Manassas  Junction  to  see  the  fight.  Politi 
cians  had  not  yet  given  up  the  notion  that 
it  was  to  be  a  three  months'  war,  and  still 
expected  that  the  first  battle  would  break 
down  the  Confederacy.  They  and  the  peo 
ple  of  the  North  hoped  that  this  would  be 
the  battle.  Along  the  banks  of  a  small 
tributary  of  the  Potomac,  Bull  Run,  about 
twenty-five  miles  from  Washington,  the  armies 
met  on  a  scorching  day.  About  equal  in 
strength,  both  showed  their  inexperience, 
but  the  Union  regiments  gave  way  first,  and 
the  return  to  Washington  was  a  disgraceful 
rout. 

Three  months  after  the  call  for  troops  the 
Confederacy,  instead  of  being  suppressed, 
was  stronger  than  ever.  The  control  of 
Missouri  was  not  yet  certain,  and  there  had 
been  no  considerable  Union  victories  any- 


CIVIL  WAR  67 

where.  The  disaster  at  Bull  Run  deepened 
the  gloom  of  the  North  and  suggested  the 
thought  that  the  war  was  more  serious  than 
had  been  anticipated.  The  country  looked 
about  helplessly  for  any  man  who  gave 
promise  of  ability  and  steadiness,  and  who 
might  ultimately  redeem  the  cause. 

At  only  one  point  along  the  military  line 
of  the  border  states  had  success  rewarded 
the  Union  efforts.  This  was  in  the  western 
counties  of  Virginia,  where  population  and 
industry  had  created  a  condition  unfavorable 
to  the  secession  cause.  Years  before  1860  it 
had  been  prophesied  that  should  Virginia 
ever  carry  out  her  threat  to  leave  the  Union 
a  portion  of  her  citizens  would  turn  the  doc 
trine  of  secession  against  her  and  rend  the 
state.  Tidewater  Virginia  had  been  an  old 
centre  of  the  plantation  South,  but  had  been 
engaged  in  a  perennial  struggle  for  control 
with  the  upland  and  mountain  counties 
which  contained  few  slaves  and  had  slight 
sympathy  with  the  southern  social  order. 
Extending  from  the  Chesapeake  to  the  Ohio, 
the  Old  Dominion  contained  two  clearly 
defined  areas  and  groups  of  population,  of 
which  the  mountain  region  was  always  in 
surgent  and  ever  for  the  Union.  Within  a 
month  after  Virginia  joined  the  Confederacy, 
her  western  citizens  organized  for  the  crea 
tion  of  a  new,  Union,  state  which  should  com 
prise  her  western  end. 

This   division    of    sentiment   in    Virginia, 


68  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

which  was  paralleled,  though  to  a  lesser  de 
gree,  in  the  mountain  regions  of  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  and  North  Carolina,  attracted 
the  attention  of  Lincoln  early  in  the  con 
troversy.  One  of  his  earliest  schemes  for 
a  campaign  included  an  army  for  the  relief 
of  the  southern  Unionists.  To  McClellan, 
in  command  at  Cincinnati,  the  call  for  aid 
from  western  Virginia  came  in  April  and 
May,  and  toward  the  end  of  June  he 
crossed  the  Ohio  with  some  twenty-seven 
regiments  and  rallied  the  unionists  at  Graf- 
ton.  After  a  few  trifling  engagements  in 
July,  in  which  he  drove  away  the  enemy,  he 
remained  in  possession  of  the  mountain 
valleys,  the  only  Union  leader  with  a  record 
of  success  when,  on  the  morning  after  Bull 
Run,  his  country  seemed  most  to  need  a 
general.  That  very  day,  July  22,  Lincoln 
summoned  him  to  Washington  to  supersede 
McDowell. 

George  Brinton  McClellan  was  one  of 
four  major-generals  ranking  next  to  General 
Scott  and  commissioned  by  the  President  in 
May,  1861.  Not  quite  thirty-five  years  of 
age  he  possessed  a  training  and  record  that 
would  have  made  him  prominent  without 
his  little  successes  in  Virginia.  Born  in 
Philadelphia,  the  son  of  a  physician  of 
standing,  he  had  been  admitted  to  the 
military  academy  at  West  Point  a  few 
months  under  legal  age,  but  had  justified 
his  admission  by  graduating  second  in  his 


CIVIL  WAR  69 

class  in  1846,  and  making  the  engineers' 
corps,  which  was  even  then  the  reward  of 
the  brilliant.  Fresh  from  the  academy,  he 
went  into  the  Mexican  War,  from  which  he 
emerged  with  credit,  experience,  and  the 
brevet  rank  of  captain.  In  1848  he  was  de 
tailed  as  instructor  in  engineering  at  West 
Ppint,  and  here  he  continued  his  own  pro 
fessional  studies  in  the  art  of  war.  Napo 
leon,  his  hero,  was  equally  the  model  of 
his  colleagues.  After  three  years  in  the 
classroom  he  was  sent  out  into  the  field  to 
do  his  share  in  the  survey  for  the  continental 
railroads.  First  in  Texas,  then  in  the  North 
west,  he  was  engaged  in  the  reconnoissance. 
By  1855  the  young  captain  was  a  marked 
man,  being  sent  to  the  field  of  the  Crimean 
WTar  to  observe  the  European  armies  at  close 
range,  and  making  there  a  detailed  study  of 
comparative  organization,  equipment,  and 
tactics.  On  his  return  to  America  with  an 
ideal  preparation  for  a  soldier,  McClellan 
yielded  to  the  industrial  tendencies  of  the 
prosperous  fifties,  and  resigned  his  commis 
sion  to  become,  first,  the  chief  engineer,  and 
then  the  vice-president  of  the  newly  opened 
Illinois  Central  railway.  In  1860  he  accepted 
the  presidency  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi 
Railroad  Company,  with  headquarters  at 
Cincinnati,  where  he  settled  down  with  a 
charming  bride  to  the  work  of  a  civilian. 

Upon  the  call  for  troops  McClellan  went 
back  into  the  harness  and  worked  so  sue- 


70  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

cessfully  that  after  Bull  Run  he  was  seized 
upon  as  the  destined  hero.  Nominally  under 
General  Scott,  he  was  actually  in  control  of 
all  the  armies  around  Washington,  and  his 
real  power  was  scarcely  altered  when  on  No 
vember  1,  1861,  his  aged  chief  retired  to 
private  life.  Before  taking  up  his  command, 
McClellan  had  shown  both  the  strength  and 
the  weakness  that  have  made  his  place  in 
history  more  difficult  to  fix,  and  more  bitterly 
controverted  than  that  of  any  other  officer 
of  the  war.  As  far  back  as  1853,  when  en 
gaged  under  General  Isaac  I.  Stevens  on  the 
Northern  Pacific  survey,  he  had  vexed  his 
commander  by  over-caution  and  a  disposi 
tion  to  magnify  the  obstacles  in  his  road. 
But  he  had  shown  a  capacity  for  organi 
zation  and  preparation,  which  had  been 
deepened  by  technical  studies  of  European 
armies  in  those  processes  in  which  he  most 
excelled.  Had  he  been  taught  by  adversity 
and  chastened  by  waiting  and  experience, 
he  might  have  risen  to  permanent  command, 
for  no  Union  officer  was  better  endowed  or 
trained.  His  phenomenal  rise,  however, 
turned  his  head,  and  he  never  fully  justified 
the  confidence  which  Lincoln  placed  in  him. 
Before  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  McClellan 
had,  in  his  private  heart,  begun  to  patronize 
General  Scott.  "I  value  that  old  man's 
praise  very  highly,"  he  said  to  his  wife  in 
a  letter  of  July  19,  "and  wrote  him  a 
short  note  last  night  telling  him  so."  In 


CIVIL  WAR  71 

three  months  more  he  spoke  of  a  visit  from 
the  President  of  the  United  States  as  an 
interruption. 

Through  all  the  summer  and  fall  McClellan 
organized  his  Army  of  the  Potomac'.  He 
withdrew  from  the  streets  of  Washington  the 
military  loafers,  officers  and  men,  who  had 
infested  them,  set  to  work '  upon  the  forti 
fications,  trained  and  equipped  his  troops 
and  made  an  army.  No  general  of  the  Civil 
War  attained  a  greater  success  than  he  in 
winning  a  love  and  popularity  that  were  not 
incompatible  with  the  highest  discipline  of 
his  men,  or  in  welding  the  component  parts 
into  a  military  unit.  By  November,  when 
he  succeeded  General  Sco£t  in  first  command, 
his  machine  was  regarded  as  ready  for  use, 
but  he  was  still  at  work  upon  his  deliber 
ate  plan  "to  display  such  an  overwhelming 
strength  as  will  convince  all  our  antagonists, 
especially  those  of  the  governing,  aristocratic 
class,  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  resistance." 

The  public  and  the  government,  more 
patient  since  the  revelations  of  Bull  Run, 
now  began  again  to  demand  that  he  move 
against  the  enemy.  Before  New  Year  it 
appeared  likely  that  there  might  be  two 
enemies,  since  it  was  learned  that  England 
was  hurrying  troops  to  Canada,  had  taken, 
steps  to  increase  her  fleet  upon  the  North 
Atlantic  station,  and  was  threatening  instant 
war. 


CHAPTER  V 

AFLOAT   AND   ABROAD 

BEFORE  the  first  troops  reached  Washing 
ton  in  response  to  the  call  for  volunteers, 
Lincoln  took  the  second  step  in  suppressing 
the  Confederacy  and  at  once  involved  the 
United  States  in  the  erection  of  a  navy  and 
in  a  legal  argument  upon  the  nature  of  the 
war.  On  April  19,  1  «S(>1,  lie  issued  a  proclama 
tion  declaring  a  blockade  of  the  ports  of  the 
seven  states  of  the  lower  South,  being  all 
those  which  had  as  yet  joined  the  Confeder 
acy,  and  announcing  that  interference  under 
pretext  of  Confederate  authority  with  any 
vessel  of  the  United  States  would  be  regarded 
as  piracy  and  treated  as  such.  The  task  of 
making  the  blockade  effective  became  the 
work  of  the  new  secretary  of  the  navy, 
Gideon  S.  Welles  of  Connecticut. 

When  this  blockade  was  announced  as  a 
means  of  bringing  the  South  to  terms,  the 
navy  of  the  United  States  included  some 
ninety  vessels,  whereas  the  seacoast  to  be 
controlled  contained  nearly  two  hundred 
harbors  and  stretched  3549  miles  from  Alex 
andria,  Virginia,  to  the  mouth  of  the  Rio 

72 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  73 

Grande.  Most  of  the  warships  were  small 
and  antiquated,  and  during  the  next  four 
years  the  navy  department  both  built  a 
new  fleet  and  struggled  with  the  complexi 
ties  involved  in  the  change  from  sail  to 
steam  and,  greater  still,  from  wood  to  iron. 
Welles,  a  journalist,  provided  the  adminis 
trative  skill  in  this  transition;  his  assistant 
secretary,  Gustavus  V.  Fox,  was  an  expert 
naval  engineer  and  directed  the  practical 
work. 

Without  ostentation,  and  infrequently  in 
the  public  eye,  the  navy  did  its  work.  Its 
personnel  received  little  of  the  sudden  praise 
or  indiscriminate  blame  that  unsettled  the 
souls  of  officers  on  land.  Yet  "Uncle  Sam's 
web  feet"  were  ever  active,  and  the  President 
gave  them  ample  credit: — "Wherever  the 
ground  was  a  little  damp,"  he  said,  "they 
have  been  and  made  their  tracks."  The 
navy  was  largely  free  from  the  difficulties 
brought  into  the  army  by  political  ambition. 
Every  village  politician  believed  himself 
competent  to  be  a  colonel  if  not  a  brigadier- 
general,  while  the  public,  unaccustomed  to 
dwell  upon  special  fitness,  assumed  that 
military  capacity  was  inherent  in  all.  But 
few  fancied  themselves  able  to  command  a 
ship  without  experience,  and  the  navy  was 
left,  generally,  to  the  control  of  experts. 

It  called  for  a  large  fleet  and  tiresome 
months  of  unromantic  service  on  station  to 
fill  the  President's  order  of  blockade;  but 


74  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

it  required  an  even  greater  degree  of  ingenuity 
to  explain  the  legal  theory  upon  which  the 
order  was  based,  and  to  persuade  the  nations 
of  the  world  that  it  was  justifiable.  "No 
State  upon  its  own  mere  motion,"  declared 
Lincoln  in  the  inaugural,  "can  lawfully  get 
out  of  the  Union."  Upon  this  theory  of  the 
perpetuity  of  the  Union  he  based  his  acts. 
The  so-called  Confederacy  was  in  his  eye 
only  a  conspiracy  of  men  masquerading  as 
states  and  pretending  to  be  a  nation;  it  was 
only  an  insurrection  against  the  laws  of  the 
United  States  to  be  suppressed  by  an  en 
larged  police.  The  confusion  in  the  United 
States  resulting  from  it  was  merely  a  domestic 
ruction,  to  which  other  nations,  like  friendly 
and  discreet  neighbors,  were  expected  to  be 
blind  and  deaf.  This  theory  of  the  municipal 
character  of  the  insurrection  was  satisfactory 
according  to  constitutional  law,  and  was  en 
titled  to  respect  in  international  law  so  long 
as  the  United  States  acted  upon  it. 

The  municipal  theory  of  the  Civil  War 
had  great  advantages  for  the  administration 
called  upon  to  fight  it.  The  President  can 
suppress  insurrection  as  the  result  of  his 
constitutional  powers.  He  cannot,  however, 
make  war  without  a  preceding  declaration  by 
Congress  or  an  actual  invasion  by  a  foreign 
power.  To  admit  that  South  Carolina  had 
invaded  the  United  States,  admitted  that 
she  had  got  out  of  the  Union,  which  was  the 
fact  that  she  desired  to  establish.  Main- 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  75 

taining  the  logical  impossibility  of  leaving 
the  Union,  the  President  was  forced  to  take 
his  ground  that  the  states  were  yet  inside 
and  component  members  of  it.  No  theory 
that  could  have  satisfied  the  domestic  needs 
of  the  situation  could  quite  cover  all  the 
facts  of  the  obvious  temporary  independence 
of  the  southern  states. 

But  in  issuing  the  proclamation  of  blockade 
the  President  forgot  his  own  asseveration 
that  there  was  no  war,  and  declared  his 
intent  to  use  powers  which  no  domestic 
revolt,  however  serious,  could  justify.  He 
proposed  to  establish  an  effective  blockade, 
to  seize  vessels  of  any  nation  attempting  to 
elude  it,  and  to  subject  them  to  the  processes 
of  prize  courts.  As  long  as  the  disturbance 
was  within  the  land,  and  its  pacification  did 
not  involve  the  rights  of  neutral  nations,  the 
theory  was  adequate,  but  as  soon  as  the  first 
British  blockade  runner  was  arrested  and 
taken  into  port  it  was  certain  that  Secretary 
Seward  would  have  to  explain  how  this  vio 
lation  of  a  friendly  nation  could  take  place 
in  time  of  peace. 

The  inconsistency  of  the  mere-insurgency 
theory  with  a  proclamation  of  blockade  ap 
pears  never  to  have  been  fully  realized  by 
Lincoln,  though  the  Supreme  Court  recog 
nized  it  in  the  first  case  appearing  before  it. 
The  resistance  and  the  powers  needed  to 
suppress  it  went  beyond  the  incidents  of 
mob  violence,  and  became  a  war,  and  Lincoln 


76  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

"was  bound  to  meet  it  in  the  shape  it  pre 
sented  itself,  without  waiting  for  Congress 
to  baptize  it  with  a  name;  and  no  name  given 
to  it  by  him  or  them  could  change  the  fact." 
Thus  ran  the  decision  in  the  Prize  Cases, 
which  went  on  to  point  out  that  only  a  war, 
implying  two  sides  and  throwing  other  nations 
into  the  place  of  neutrals,  can  justify  the 
rights  of  blockade  and  those  of  search.  This 
was  the  strong  contention  of  the  United 
States  during  the  Napoleonic  wars,  when 
both  England  and  France  were  disposed 
to  forget  it,  and  it  is  a  curious  reversal  of 
positions  to  see  Great  Britain,  in  1861, 
solicitous  over  the  rights  of  neutral  states. 
Blind  to  the  inconsistency,  Lincoln  deter 
mined  to  use  the  rights  of  war,  yet  to  deny 
to  Great  Britain  the  privileges  of  neutrals. 

The  organization  of  the  foreign  service  of 
the  United  States  fell  to  Seward,  and  attracted 
small  attention  from  the  President.  As 
usual  the  ministers  commissioned  by  Bu 
chanan  were  recalled,  one  by  one,  and  re 
placed  by  members  of  the  ruling  party.  The 
British  post  was  regarded  as  the  chief  ap 
pointment,  as  it  always  has  been,  and  in  the 
Civil  War  gained  an  added  importance  be 
cause  the  interest  of  Great  Britain  was 
affected  more  than  that  of  all  the  world 
outside. 

The  Confederate  States  counted  on  the 
cotton  crop  as  their  means  of  carrying  on  the 
war.  The  sale  of  this  abroad  was  to  produce 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  77 

the  revenue  needed  by  the  army,  while  the 
interest  of  the  European  countries  in  the 
crop  was  believed  to  be  sufficient  to  induce 
them  to  quarrel  with  the  United  States  should 
a  blockade  attempt  to  interfere  with  it. 
More  than  five  million  bales  of  cotton  were 
marketed  by  the  South  in  1860,  nearly  half 
of  it  going  to  the  spindles  of  the  British 
factories.  Yearly  the  demand  for  it  was 
strengthening.  The  invention  of  the  sewing 
machine,  revolutionizing  the  clothing  indus 
try,  had  multiplied  the  demand  for  cotton 
cloth,  to  the  great  profit  and  encouragement 
of  the  South.  In  England  great  cities  lived 
upon  the  manufacture  of  this  cloth.  Should 
their  supply  be  cut  off  starvation  would  con 
front  them  and,  if  the  southern  diagnosis 
was  correct,  Great  Britain  would  be  forced 
to  go  to  war  on  behalf  of  the  Confederacy. 

Early  in  1861  Confederate  agents  were  de 
spatched  to  sound  the  courts  of  Europe  and 
to  lay  in  stores  for  the  new  government. 
Information  respecting  their  status  was  sent 
to  the  American  minister  in  London  even 
before  the  inauguration.  Dallas  was  in 
structed  to  represent  to  the  British  ministry 
that  these  agents  of  an  insurgent  govern 
ment  had  no  standing  in  law,  and  that  the 
whole  trouble  was  domestic.  All  the  foreign 
ministers  were  instructed  by  Seward  that, 
if  the  resistance  should  call  for  force,  it  would 
be  out  of  order  for  governments  to  issue  proc 
lamations  of  neutrality,  since  there  would  be 


78  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

no  war.    All  were  to  prevent  a  recognition  of 
independence  at  any  cost. 

Charles  Francis  Adams  of  Massachusetts, 
son  of  one  President  and  grandson  of  another, 
was  appointed  minister  to  Great  Britain  in 
April  and  left  Boston  on  May  1.  The  British 
government  to  which  he  was  commissioned 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Liberals, — but  Lib 
erals  so  old  in  office  that  they  had  lived 
down  the  enthusiasms  of  youth  and  were 
unlikely  to  be  influenced  in  their  conduct 
by  any  motive  but  the  advantage  of  their 
country.  Lord  Palmerston,  their  prime  min 
ister,  was  an  old  man  who  had  distrusted 
American  politicians  during  a  long  and  active 
life.  Lord  John  Russell,  his  foreign  secretary, 
was  less  unfriendly  to  Americans,  but  both 
he  and  Palmerston  partook  somewhat  of 
the  temper  of  the  British  ruling  class  that 
knew  the  southerner  more  intimately  and 
liked  him  better  than  the  northern  business 
or  professional  man.  There  was  a  predis 
position  in  England  to  sympathize  with  the 
South,  regardless  of  slavery,  which  Great 
Britain  had  outlawed.  Davis  and  his  col 
leagues  were  "gentlemen"  but  none  had 
heard  of  Lincoln  as  possessing  social  standing 
or  aspirations.  Until  it  was  entirely  clear 
that  slavery  was  the  motive  force  of  the 
Confederacy,  this  sympathy  remained.  It 
had  been  understood  at  Washington,  from 
the  despatches  of  Mr.  Dallas,  that  the  status 
to  be  accorded  to  the  Confederacy  by  the 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  79 

British  government  would  not  be  determined 
until  after  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Adams,  who 
reached  London  on  May  13,  1861. 

The  fall  of  Fort  Sumter  and  the  issuance  of 
the  proclamation  of  blockade  on  April  19, 
had  changed  the  necessities  of  the  situation 
for  Lord  Palmerston's  government.  Except 
in  a  war,  no  blockade  could  be  legal;  and 
if  this  was  to  be  a  war,  the  close  commer 
cial  ties  of  Great  Britain  to  southern  ports 
compelled  the  observance  of  a  strict  neu 
trality.  On  the  very  day  of  Adams's  arrival 
in  London,  and  greatly  to  his  discomfiture, 
Lord  Russell  announced  that  her  Majesty 
had  seen  fit  to  issue  a  proclamation  of 
neutrality,  which  could  not  avoid  according 
belligerent  rights  to  the  Confederacy  during 
the  ensuing  war.  American  public  opinion, 
as  blind  as  the  cabinet  to  the  legal  incon 
sistency  of  blockades  in  an  insurrection, 
took  the  act  as  evidence  of  unfriendliness, 
if  not  of  bad  faith,  and  the  tension  upon 
Anglo-American  relations,  so  conspicuous 
throughout  the  war,  began.  Later  reflection 
reverses  the  contemporary  opinion;  neutral 
ity  was  eminently  proper  and,  had  the  proc 
lamation  been  put  off  until  after  the  battle 
of  Bull  Run,  it  might  reasonably  have  been 
a  proclamation  of  recognition. 

In  the  middle  of  May,  Mr.  Adams  took 
up  his  long  diplomatic  duel  with  Lord  John 
Russell.  Both  of  mature  age,  deliberate  and 
unemotional,  clear  of  vision  and  honest  in 


80  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

intention,  their  mutual  respect  steadily  in 
creased,  and  no  difficulty  ever  became  worse 
through  slipshod  manners  on  the  part  of 
either.  Neutrality  had  been  proclaimed  and 
belligerent  rights  conceded  in  what  Adams 
regarded  as  unfriendly  haste,  but  there  yet 
remained  recognition  to  be  prevented;  while 
that  neutrality  which  Great  Britain  had 
so  readily  assumed  needed  to  be  watched 
lest  in  practice  her  subjects  should  depart 
from  it. 

No  less  than  the  British  government, 
Adams  had  to  watch  the  secretary  of  state, 
for  the  sagacious  mind  of  Mr.  Seward  more 
than  once  fell  into  vagaries  whence  only  the 
wisdom  of  his  chief  or  his  subordinate  rescued 
him.  Seward  believed  that  he  was  to  be 
head  of  the  cabinet  and  was  to  dictate  the 
policies  of  government.  On  the  1st  of  April, 
while  affairs  were  still  unsettled,  he  had 
presented  a  memorandum  to  Lincoln  which 
took  the  ground  that  since  the  President 
had  no  policy  the  secretary  was  willing  to 
provide  one,  and  that  as  a  counter-irritant 
to  secession  it  would  be  wise  to  provoke  a 
foreign  war  with  England,  France,  or  both, 
in  order  to  evoke  a  strong  national  spirit 
which  might  bring  back  the  South.  Lincoln 
forgave  and  concealed  the  impertinence, 
where  most  men  would  have  dismissed  the 
offender,  and  used  Seward  as  his  strongest 
adviser  until  his  death.  He  did  not  however 
prevent  the  occasional  drafting  of  a  note  too 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  81 

strong  to  be  wise,  and  had  not  Adams  used 
his  own  discretion  when  instructions  were 
too  bellicose,  these  would  have  led  to  an 
unnecessary  collision.  During  the  summer 
of  18SJU  with  only  disheartening  news  coining 
from  the  army,  A  (jams,  devoted  himself  to 

the,  ta&k  of   PArplaining  jjj^jjj^jtprj    S4fa.fps   t.fi 


e  unofficial  agents  of  the  Confederacy 
learned  that  they  were  being  watched.  In 
the  spring  they  had  been  received  informally 
at  the  foreign  office,  but  under  the  per 
suasion  of  Adams,  and  convinced  that  the 
Union  had  a  policy  at  last,  Lord  Russell 
finally  closed  his  doors  to  them.  In  Septem 
ber  the  Cgjjfedecaia  tactics  changed,  and  the 
commissioners  wer^  snpprsqde.d  by  ^g^gj^ifll 
mission.  It  was  dec-iued  to  send  ministers  to 
both  Great  Britain  and  France,  in  the  hope 
that  formal  agents,  fully  accredited,  would 
receive  an  audience. 

The  success  at  Bull  Run,  followed  by 
other  skirmishes  along  the  line  of  the  border 
states,  determined  President  Davis  to  try 
the  effect  of  simultaneous  embassies  to  the 
courts  of  St.  James  and  the  Tuileries.  The 
men  selected  to  represent  the  Confeder 
acy  had  weight,  accomplishments,  and  local 
standing.  John  .Slidell,  commissioner  to 
France,  had  had  diplomatic  experience  before 
the  war.  James  M.  Mason,  commissioned 
to  England,  ranked  high  among  Virginia 
politicians.  Accompanied  by  their  families, 


82  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

secretaries,  servants,  and  hampers  of  pro 
visions,  for  the  Atlantic  voyage  was  no 
vacation  trip  in  1861,  they  ran  through  the 
blockade  at  Charleston  in  October,  and 
arrived  safely  in  Havana,  where  on  Novem 
ber  7  they  took  passage  for  Southampton. 
On  November  8  the  boat  which  carried  them, 
the  British  mail  packet  '"Jient^"  was  arrested 
in  the  Bahama  Channel  by  the  United  States 
gunboat,  "San  Jacinto,"  Captain  Wilkes. 

Disregarding  the  indignant  protests  of 
the  captain  of  the  "Trent,"  who  had  stopped 
his  boat  only  after  a  shot  had  been  fired 
across  her  bows,  Wilkes  took  a  strong  board 
ing  force  upon  the  British  steamer  and  re 
moved  the  ministers  and  their  secretaries. 
With  these  he  returned  to  American  waters, 
allowing  the  "Trent"  to  proceed  to  her 
destination.  The  prisoners  were  confined 
at  Boston  while  America  went  wild  over  the 
arrest. 

Only  in  the  light  of  the  repeated  disQour- 
agements  of  the  first  campaign,  and  the  delay 
of  MeClellan  with  the  army  of  the  Potomac, 
can  the  enthusiasm  which  greeted  the  exploit 
of  Captain  Wilkes  be  understood.  Americans, 
long  hungry  for  something  that  looked  like 
victory,  lost  their  heads.  Dinners  and  pres 
entation  swords  were  showered  upon  the 
captain,  the  House  of  Representatives  form 
ally  thanked  him,  and  the  secretary  of  the 
navy  wrote  him  a  note  of  congratulation. 
All  through  November  the  excitement  lasted, 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  83 

undimmed  by  the  thought  that  Great  Britain 
might  resent  the  act.  A  few  of  the  Union 
leaders  —  Sumner,  Blair,  Lincoln  —  doubted 
the  wisdom  of  the  seizure  from  the  first. 
Seward,  pleased  at  the  start,  had  a  speedy 
second  thought. 

In  England,  the  government  was  appre 
hensive  of  a  seizure  from  the  time  it  learned 
that  commissioners  were  to  be  despatched. 
First  came  the  rumor  that  they  had  escaped 
in  a  Confederate  warship,  in  which  case  a 
seizure  would  have  involved  no  one.  But 
if,  as  it  was  later  believed,  the  commissioners 
were  to  be  taken  from  a  British  mail  boat, 
perhaps  even  in  the  British  Channel,  by 
one  of  the  American  vessels  there  on  station, 
Palmerston  feared  the  consequences  of  an 
aroused  public  opinion,  and  gained  no  com 
fort  from  the  law  officers  of  the  crown.  On 
November  11  he  met  a  group  of  his  legal  ad 
visers  to  consider  the  course  of  Great  Brit 
ain  if  the  packet  should  be  stopped  and  the 
passengers  removed,  and  these  advised  him 
that  an  American  cruiser  would  be  justified, 
by  British  precedent,  not  only  in  a  search 
upon  the  West  India  packet,  but  in  a  removal 
of  the  southern  men  and  their  despatches. 
Four  days  later  he  sought  reassurance  from 
Adams,  who  disavowed  any  intention  to  re 
move  the  agents  from  the  "Trent." 

Ten  days  after  he  had  calmed  the  fears  of 
the  prime  minister,  Adams  went  down  into 
the  country  to  a  house  party.  There,  on 


84  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

November  27,  he  received  a  telegram  con 
veying  the  unwelcome  news  that  the  very 
crisis  that  he  had  explained  away  had  come 
to  pass,  and  that  Mason  and  Slidell  had  been 
prisoners  for  a  week  on  the  day  of  his  con 
ference  with  Palmerston.  Dismayed  at  the 
news,  certain  that  Palmerston  would  doubt 
his  good  faith,  and  not  sure  that  Seward  had 
not  given  way  to  his  belligerent  tendencies, 
Adams  went  up  to  London  on  the  28th, 
nearly  convinced  that  there  was  nothing  to 
be  done.  Not  until  December  17  did  he  re 
ceive  an  instruction  on  the  subject  from  the 
secretary  of  state,  and  then  it  was  only  a 
statement  that  Wilkes  had  acted  without 
orders  and  that  the  matter  was  under 
consideration. 

Meanwhile,  undeterred  by  the  advice  of 
its  law  officers  that  the  United  States  had 
a  right  to  do  what  it  had  done,  the  Brit 
ish  government  was  threatening  retaliation. 
"Lord  Palmerston  is  very  agreeable,"  the 
historian  Bancroft  had  written  fourteen 
years  before,  "but  he  belongs  to  the  old 
school  of  British  statesmen,  who  think 
John  Bull  is  everything,  and  that  inter 
national  law,  treaties,  and  interests  of  all 
sorts  must  yield  to  British  pretensions." 
True  to  the  description,  the  instruction  to 
the  British  minister  in  Washington,  Lord 
Lyons,  was  dated  November  30,  before  any 
explanation  had  been,  or  could  have  been, 
received.  Release  and  apology  were  de- 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  85 

manded  peremptorily,  and  additional  in 
structions  ordered  the  minister  to  return  to 
London  with  legation  and  archives,  if  these 
should  not  be  granted  in  a  week. 

Long  before  Lord  Lyons  presented  the 
ultimatum  from  his  chief,  the  cabinet  in 
Washington  realized  that  wholesale  jubila 
tion  did  not  cover  all  the  facts.  Besides  the 
great  embarrassment  of  a  British  war  at 
this  time,  a  war  which  could  scarcely  avoid 
accomplishing  the  aims  of  the  Confederacy, 
the  difficulty  of  justifying  the  captures  by 
Captain  Wilkes  loomed  up.  Serious  advisers 
at  home  and  abroad  told  Seward  that  the 
act  was  an  outrage.  On  a  friendly  vessel, 
between  two  neutral  ports,  individuals  who 
were  in  no  sense  military  had  been  arrested. 
Grave  doubts  existed  as  to  the  legality  of 
such  seizure  on  any  terms,  but  jGaptain. 
JiSilkes  had  made  a  bad  case  worse  by  acting 
himself  as  judge  and  jury  in  taking  the  pris 
oners  and  releasing  the  carrier.  Had  the 
arrest  been  proper,  the  "Trent"  ought  to 
have  been  seized  and  sent  to  port  for  trial 
and  condemnation  or  release.  By  Christ 
mas,  Seward  saw  that  the  captives  must  be 
given  up. 

On  December  25  and  26  the  cabinet  sat 
in  a  prolonged  session  over  a  note  which 
Seward  had  written  in  reply  to  Lord  Lyons 's 
demand,  and  which  marks  the  highest  point 
reached  by  the  secretary  as  a  political  dip 
lomat.  Laboriously  he  convinced  his  col- 


86  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

leagues  on  the  main  point,  then  read  the 
note  which,  while  conceding  the  release, 
made  an  appeal  likely  to  soften  the  humilia 
tion  to  his  fellow  citizens.  Justifying  the 
right  to  arrest  such  individuals  as  these,  he 
inquired  whether  the  detention  had  been 
in  good  form  and  according  to  the  legal 
precedents.  Here  he  found  that  the  British 
contention  was  "an  old,  honored,  and  cher 
ished  American  cause."  Ever  since  the 
administration  of  Jefferson  it  had  been 
the  American  principle,  urged  repeatedly  in 
the  face  of  British  practice,  that  whenever 
property  supposedly  liable  to  condemnation 
was  found  upon  a  neutral  vessel,  the  offend 
ing  vessel  must  be  carried  into  port.  Wilkes 
had  not  done  this.  "If  I  decide  this  case  in 
favor  of  my  own  Government,  I  must  dis 
allow  its  most  cherished  principles,  and 
reverse  and  forever  abandon  its  essential 
policy.  The  country  cannot  afford  the  sac 
rifice.  If  I  maintain  these  principles,  and 
adhere  to  that  policy,  I  must  surrender  the 
case  itself.  .  .  .  We  are  asked  to  do  to  the 
British  nation  just  what  we  have  always 
insisted  all  nations  ought  to  do  to  us." 

Shortly  after  the  New  Year,  the  prisoners 
were  given  up  and  taken  to  England,  where 
they  were  less  useful  to  the  Confederate 
cause  than  when  in  an  American  prison. 
War,  which  had  been  dangerously  close,  was 
avoided.  But  the  United  States  never  for 
gave  the  undue  haste  with  which  Lord  Pal- 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  87 

merston  sent  out  his  ultimatum  and  followed 
it  with  troops,  while  Palmerston,  always 
suspicious  of  Americans,  was  doubly  irritated 
by  the  note  of  Seward  which,  while  closing 
the  case  by  a  compliance,  made  the  compli 
ance  in  terms  unpalatable  to  any  Briton, 
and  of  doubtful  applicability  to  the  case  in 
hand.  The  prime  question  in  the  case  of 
Mason  and  Slidell  concerns  the  right  of  a 
belligerent  to  capture  enemy  property  or 
persons,  not  military,  on  a  voyage  between 
neutral  ports. 

Though  falling  short  of  a  war,  the  "Trent" 
affair  left  English  opinion  ready  to  sympa 
thize  with  the  successes  of  the  Confederacy 
and  to  delight  in  the  defeats  of  the  United 
States.     Adams  found  in  the  months  immeX 
diately  following  another  problem  of  even  j 
greater    legal    difficulty,    which    finally    got/ 
beyond  his  control.     This  was  the  attempt  } 
of  the  Confederacy  to  build  a  navy. 

The  same  reasons  which  kept  volunteer 
politicians  from  interfering  with  the  manage 
ment  of  the  United  States  navy  made  it 
hard  for  the  Confederacy  to  maintain  any 
navy.  Only  mariners  could  command.  The 
South  had  not  been  commercial  in  organiza 
tion  and  possessed  but  a  small  sea-faring 
element  among  its  population.  Some  of  the 
naval  officers  of  the  United  States  resigned, 
but  these  in  their  work  of  organizing  a  Con 
federate  navy  were  forced  to  rely  upon  the 
services  of  foreigners  for  personnel  and  to 


88  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

secure  most  of  their  material  equipment 
abroad.  A  few  United  States  vessels  were 
seized  at  the  time  of  secession,  certain 
merchantmen  and  coasters  were  converted 
into  cruisers,  but  any  large  naval  equipment 
called  for  different  resources  than  those  which 
the  Confederacy  contained. 

The  purchase  and  construction  of  ships  of 
war  was  one  of  the  first  objects  of  Confed 
erate  diplomacy,  and  became  the  occasion 
of  the  special  mission  of  James  H.  Bulloch, 
a  former  captain  of  the  UnTted^'States  navy, 
who  arrived  in  England  in  the  summer  of 
1861.  The  most  important  of  Bulloch's 
contracts  was  made  with  a  great  ship-build 
ing  firm,  Laird  Brothers,  with  yards  at  Birk- 
enhead,  while  the  vessel  built  to  his  order 
was  launched  in  the  spring  of  1862.  The 
construction  of  this  ship  soon  came  to  the 
attention  of  the  American  minister,  who  at 
once  represented  to  the  foreign  office  the 
impropriety  of  permitting  the  delivery  to  the 
Confederacy  of  a  vessel  to  be  used  against 
the  commerce  of  the  United  States. 

The  duties  of  neutrals,  according  to  the 
accepted  rules  of  international  law,  do  not 
prevent  the  traffic  in  munitions  of  war 
between  their  subjects  and  those  of  the 
belligerents,  but  they  do  forbid  direct  en 
gagement  in  the  war  or  the  use  of  the  neu 
tral  country  as  a  military  or  naval  base. 
Accordingly,  Mr.  Adams  contended  that 
since  the  Confederacy  was  under  blockade 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  89 

it  would  not  be  practicable  to  deliver  the 
vessel  into  a  Confederate  port  before  commis- 
'sioning  her.  Instead,  she  would  start  upon 
her  career  from  England  or  the  high  seas, 
and  in  either  case  would  involve  the  Brit 
ish  government  in  a  violation  of  neutrality. 

Repeatedly  during  the  summer  of  1862 
Adams  urged  the  foreign  office  to  seize 
"  Nn.jflO^"  as  t.hp  offending  rnjfser  was  known 
upon  the  books  of  Laird  Brothers.  But  he 
found  the  British  government  reluctant  to 
see  evidence  pointing  to  her  illegal  character, 
and  slow  to  act.  When  at  the  last  minute 
the  law  officers  advised  that  she  might  be 
held,  it  was  too  late.  The  ship  was  nearly 
done  in  July,  when  rumor  informed  the 
Confederate  agents  that  arrest  was  probable. 
They  acted  quickly,  ran  her  out  of  English 
waters  on  July  28,  and  took  her  to  sea  un 
armed.  TJie-^«4^ment,-guiia,  and  ammuni 
tion  left  England  from  a  different  port  and 
met  "No,  290"  in  the  Azores,  where  she  was 
christened  "Alabama,"  and  ran  up  the  Con 
federate  flag,  IJnder  the  command  of  Raphael 
Semmes  she  set  about  her  work,  and  gained 
a  notoriety  out  of  all  proportion  to  her  size. 
Her  burden  was  only  1040  tons;  her  length 
220  feet.  The  British  papers  chronicled  her 
escape  and  chuckled  at  the  clever  shrewd 
ness  with  which  the  law  had  been  evaded. 
An  unarmed  vessel  had  left  Liverpool,  and 
could  not  be  considered  a  violation  of  neu 
trality;  a  cargo  of  munitions  had  left  a 


90  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

different  port  in  a  legal  traffic;  where  was 
there  anything  for  the  astute  Yankee  min 
ister  to  lay  his  hands  upon?  The  reply  of 
Adams  was  that  in  matters  maritime  the 
intent  governs  the  act,  that  violators  of  the 
law  always  seek  to  disguise  their  acts,  that 
it  was  the  duty  of  Great  Britain  to  prevent 
evasions  and  to  have  ample  laws  empowering 
her  servants  to  act  efficiently;  and,  finally, 
that  the  United  States  would  hold  her 
responsible  for  every  injury  done  by  the 
"Alabama"  or  her  kind. 

In  vain,  for  the  present,  Adams  collected 
his  evidence  and  presented  his  claims.  ^Brit 
ish  opinion  ran  high  against  Ajnerican  pre 
tension  in  the  second  year  of  the  war,  and 
talk  not  only  of  mediation  but  of  recognition 
was  in  the  air.  McClellan's  reputed  genius 
had  accomplished  little,  and  sober  English 
men  began  to  think  that  the  Confederacy 
would  make  good  its  determination.  In  a 
speech  at  Newcastle  in  October,  the  chan 
cellor  of  the  exchequer,  William  E.  Glad 
stone,  spoke  of  the  American  situation, 
saying,  in  ominous  words  for  Mr.  Adams's 
peace  of  mind,  "There  is  no  doubt  that 
Jefferson  Davis  and  the  leaders  of  the  South 
have  made  an  army;  they  are  making,  it 
appears,  a  navy;  and  they  have  made,  what 
is  more  than  either — they  have  made  a 
nation."  So  far  definitive  action  by  the 
government  had  been  warded  off.  The 
sympathies  of  England  were  clearly  with 


AFLOAT  AND  ABROAD  91 

the  South*  but  her  cabinet  was  unlikely  to 
sacrifice  any  interest  to  these  while  the 
military  outcome  remained  in  doubt.  For 
another  year,  until  the  emancipation  procla 
mation  and  the  Union  victories  had  changed 
the  outlook,  Adams  had  constantly  to  be  on 
the  alert  to  explain,  or  soothe,  or  rebuke. 


CHAPTER  VI 

1862:   McCLELLAN  AND   EMANCIPATION 

"ON  to  Richmond"  had  begun  to  be  the 
cry  of  the  Union  even  before  the  fiasco  of 
Bull  Run.  Temporarily  silenced  by  the  evi 
dence  of  unpreparedness,  it  did  not  echo 
loudly  again  until  the  army  of  the  Potomac 
took  shape  under  the  skilful  hands  of  Mc- 
Clellan  in  the  autumn,  but  through  the 
early  winter  the  pressure  for  an  immediate 
advance  increased.  McClellan  at  his  head 
quarters  saw  all  the  obstacles  in  the  road  of 
that  advance. 

Between  the  two  rival  capitals,  Washing 
ton  and  Richmond,  the  distance  as  the  crow 
flies  is  about  one  hundred  miles.  But  the 
intervening  country  could  hardly  have  been 
less  adapted  to  the  movements  of  armies 
if  nature  had  exerted  herself  to  discourage 
them.  The  Potomac  and  the  James,  on 
which  the  two  cities  lie,  run  nearly  parallel. 
Between  them  the  Rappahannock  and  the 
York,  with  a  network  of  branches,  cross 
every  direct  line  of  march,  and  fill  with 
marsh  and  swamp,  almost  uncharted  in 
1862,  such  portions  of  the  country  as  were 

92 


THE 

SEAT  OF  WAR 
IN  THE  EAST 

Enffish  Statute  Miles 


94  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

not  already  obstructed  by  dense  forests. 
Bounded  on  the  east  by  the  river  mouths 
widening  into  Chesapeake  Bay,  some  sixty 
miles  from  the  direct  line,  the  region  is 
bounded  on  the  west,  at  a  similar  distance, 
by  the  hills  of  the  Blue  Ridge,  behind  which, 
running  northeast  through  the  great  valley, 
the  Shenandoah  River  waters  a  fertile  farm 
land  and  empties  into  the  Potomac  at  Har 
per's  Ferry.  Here,  in  an  area  slightly  over 
one  hundred  miles  square,  was  the  battle 
field  which  became  the  inevitable  seat  of 
the  war  in  the  East  when  the  Confederacy 
fixed  its  place  of  government  at  Richmond, 
the  capital  of  Virginia.  Regardless  of  its 
military  importance  or  strategic  value,  which 
was  slight,  eastern  Virginia  was  forced  to 
the  front  because  of  the  necessity  upon  each 
government  to  defend  its  capital  and  threaten 
that  of  the  enemy.  Always  an  embarrass 
ment  to  either  government,  yet  not  decisive 
upon  the  outcome  of  the  war,  the  fighting 
between  Washington  and  Richmond  was 
on  a  larger  and  more  costly  scale  than  any 
other. 

The  Napoleonic  plan  which  McClellan 
had  conceived  in  1861  involved  the  creation 
at  Washington  of  an  army  of  a  quarter- 
million  or  more,  with  which,  overawing  all 
resistance,  he  could  march  through  Rich 
mond  to  the  southern  limit  of  the  Confed 
eracy.  The  project  might  not  have  been 
impossible  had  either  people  or  government 


1862:  McCLELLAN  — EMANCIPATION    95 

been  willing  to  wait  until  the  gigantic  force 
was  ready  for  use.  Before  the  year  was  over, 
Lincoln  thought  that  an  advance  upon  Rich 
mond,  at  least,  might  be  begun,  and  was 
disposed  to  urge  it  along  the  direct  line  be 
cause  such  an  advance  would  keep  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  always  between  Washington 
and  the  enemy.  In  vain  he  struggled  to 
get  McClellan  to  move  before  Christmas,  or 
in  the  early  spring;  and  when  the  general 
finally  consented  to  start,  he  had  changed 
his  plan,  abandoned  the  direct  attack,  and 
determined  to  ship  his  force  by  sea  to  the 
peninsula  between  the  York  and  the  James, 
up  which  he  might  march  upon  Richmond 
with  less  natural  obstruction  to  overcome. 
Grateful  for  movement  on  any  plan,  Lincoln 
co-operated  with  the  manoeuvre,  only  stip 
ulating  that  Washington  must  not  be  left 
uncovered.  Over  the  interpretation  of  this 
stipulation  the  peninsular  campaign  of  1862 
broke  down. 

It  was  the  belief  of  McClellan  that  a  vigor 
ous  attack  upon  Richmond  would  be  Wash 
ington's  best  defence.  It  would  compel  the 
enemy  to  concentrate  his  whole  army  at  his 
own  threshold.  But  Lincoln's  advisers  were 
nervous  unless  an  actual  army  was  stationed 
around  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  as 
soon  as  McClellan  had  started  the  President 
yielded  to  political  pressure  and  organized 
three  armies  for  the  greater  security  of  the 
capital.  One  was  in  western  Virginia,  where 


96  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

there  was  no  enemy,  but  where  Fremont, 
who  had  to  have  a  command,  could  be  sta 
tioned;  another  was  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley 
under  Banks,  guarding  the  "back  door"  to 
Washington;  the  third  was  under  McDowell, 
at  Washington.  It  is  the  opinion  of  many 
military  experts  that  this  caution  of  the 
President  was  both  needless  and  unwise, 
and  that  McClellan's  plan  was  right;  yet 
without  these  troops,  diverted  from  his  com 
mand  for  political  reasons,  McClellan  started 
up  the  Peninsula  in  the  spring  in  1862  with 
a  larger  army  than  could  be  placed  in  the 
field  against  him. 

The  Confederate  army,  acting  upon  the 
orders  of  President  Davis,  who  believed  him 
self  a  great  strategist,  was  organized  for  a 
defensive  campaign  around  Richmond  and 
contained  among  its  leaders  two  generals 
who  would  have  been  famous  in  any  company, 
and  who  outclassed  McClellan.  The  Union 
army,  during  April  and  May,  advanced  up 
the  Peninsula,  from  Yorktown  to  Williams- 
burg,  across  the  Chickahominy,  and  was 
almost  in  sight  of  the  city  of  Richmond  before 
General  Robert  E.  Lee  left  his  desk,  where 
he  had  been  chief  military  adviser  to  Davis, 
to  take  command  of  the  Confederate  army. 
After  two  months  of  hard  fighting,  McClellan 
had  about  100,000  men  before  Richmond  in 
June.  Lee  had  30,000  less.  But  the  campaign 
had  already  been  made  a  failure  by  the  exer 
tions  of  "Stonewall"  Jackson. 


1862:  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION    97 

It  was  at  Bull  Run,  in  1861,  that  Thomas 
Jonathan  Jackson,  a  Virginia  Scotch-Irish 
man,  having  placed  his  brigade  in  the  strong 
est  position  in  the  Confederate  line,  held  it 
there  until  he  had  earned  the  nickname 
"Stonewall."  Neither  his  brilliancy  nor 
his  profound  strategy  had  come  to  him  by 
accident.  A  deliberate  student  of  military 
history,  he  had  taught  himself  the  larger 
things  which  he  had  not  learned  at  West 
Point  or  in  the  Mexican  War.  For  ten  years 
before  the  Civil  War  he  was  professor  in  a 
Virginia  military  school  for  boys,  preparing 
against  the  day  when  he  should  return  to 
the  field.  Honest,  narrow,  devout,  no  repu 
tation  of  the  Civil  War  is  more  secure  or 
picturesque  than  his.  A  tremendous  lover 
of  truth  in  private  life,  as  a  commander  he 
deceived  and  misled  everyone  but  himself, 
keeping  the  enemy  entirely  ignorant  of  his 
movements  until  they  were  accomplished, 
and  giving  even  his  friends  little  inkling  of 
his  real  intent.  Like  the  old  Puritans,  he 
fought  best  after  prayer.  "The  General," 
said  his  body-servant,  Jim,  "is  a  great  man 
for  prayin'.  He  pray  night  and  mornin'- 
all  times.  But  when  I  see  him  get  up  several 
times  in  the  night,  an'  go  off  an'  pray,  den  I 
know  there  is  goin  to  be  sometkin*  to  pay,  an* 
I  go  right  away  and  pack  his  haversack." 

While  McClellan  was  yet  marching  up  the 
Peninsula,  Jackson  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley 
was  endangering  his  campaign.  Through 


98  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

April  and  May  he  created  the  impression  of 
having  a  large  force  ready  to  plunge  down  the 
Valley  the  instant  McClellan  got  away. 
Masking  both  his  intentions  and  his  small 
force,  he  first  deceived  and  then  defeated 
Banks,  who  commanded  the  Union  army  in 
the  Valley,  and  frightened  Lincoln  into  efforts 
to  crush  him  by  the  concerted  movements  of 
the  three  armies  of  Fremont,  Banks,  and 
McDowell.  Jackson  eluded  the  attack,  and 
as  soon  as  it  was  thoroughly  under  way  he 
slipped  out  of  the  Valley,  reporting  in  Rich 
mond  with  his  army  in  the  end  of  June.  He 
had  tied  up  a  great  and  useless  Union  force 
on  the  Shenandoah,  and  was  now  ready  to 
help  Lee  with  McClellan. 

Whether  McClellan  needed  McDowell's 
army  or  not  is  a  matter  for  military  critics, 
but  there  can  be  no  difference  of  opinion 
that  the  diversion  created  by  Jackson's  ma 
noeuvre  broke  his  confidence.  By  the  last 
week  in  June  the  success  of  his  campaign 
was  questionable.  Through  July  he  only 
held  his  own.  And  in  August  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  was  recalled  from  the  Pen 
insula.  McClellan  reported  his  return  to 
Washington  a  day  or  two  before  his  suc 
cessor  in  the  public  favor  collapsed. 

If  there  had  been  nothing  to  offset  Mc- 
Clellan's  campaign,  the  spring  of  1862  would 
have  been  indeed  doleful.  The  British- 
built  Confederate  navy  was  getting  to  sea 
and  the  public  had  not  yet  realized  how 


1862:  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION    99 

important  were  the  armies  in  the  West.  But 
the  navy,  non-political  and  efficient,  was 
making  progress.  Its  first  triumph  closed 
the  period  of  the  wooden  battleship. 

Early  in  1862  the  naval  defence  of  Wash 
ington  was  endangered  by  the  Confederates' 
possession  of  an  iron-clad  hulk,  seized  and 
armored  after  the  abandonment  of  the 
Norfolk  navy  yard,  and  re-christened  the 
"Merrimac."  Before  the  impregnable  "Mer- 
rimac"  frigate  after  frigate  collapsed,  until 
on  March  9  she  met  the  new  invention  of 
Ericsson,  the  turret  "Monitor."  No  bat 
tleship  less  orthodox  than  the  "Monitor"  in 
her  appearance  ever  floated;  nor  did  any 
look  less  dangerous  than  she,  with  her  small 
cylindrical  gun-house  upon  her  nearly  sub 
merged  deck.  But  the  naval  duel  in  Hamp 
ton  Roads  that  day  determined  the  course  of 
naval  construction  for  two  generations,  and 
rendered  obsolete  nearly  every  navy  in  the 
world.  Yet  the  old  frigates  of  the  United 
States  navy  did  some  more  service  before 
they  were  broken  up.  In  April  Farragut, 
wearied  with  the  difficulties  of  blockading 
the  many  mouths  of  the  Mississippi,  sailed 
up  the  river,  ran  the  forts,  and  took  posses 
sion  of  New  Orleans.  With  General  Butler 
in  command  of  the  conquered  city,  New 
Orleans  ceased  to  be  a  menace  to  the  Union 
cause.  Not  squeamish  in  methods,  and 
perhaps  willing  to  profit  by  illicit  trade,  the 
latter  nevertheless  showed  himself  a  com- 


100  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

petent  ruler  in  cleansing  the  town  and 
managing  its  affairs. 

While  McClellan  was  winding  up  his  cam 
paign  and  complaining  of  the  refusal  of 
Lincoln  to  let  him  have  McDowell,  the  ad 
ministration  had  found  new  commanders  and 
had  placed  its  trust  in  them.  These  were 
Halleck,  who,  having  superseded  Fremont  in 
the  West,  was  now  made  general-in-chief, 
and  military  adviser  at  Washington,  and 
Pope,  who  was  called  from  the  Mississippi 
Valley  to  command  the  three  armies  of 
Fremont,  Banks,  and  McDowell.  Pope  was 
even  less  successful  than  McClellan  had 
been,  and  lacked  both  the  popularity  and 
the  prestige  of  his  predecessor.  Toward  the 
end  of  August  he  was  out-generalled  and  out 
fought  at  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run,  and 
on  September  2,  in  despair  and  against  the 
wishes  of  his  cabinet,  Lincoln  called  upon 
McClellan  to  resume  command. 

It  was  high  time  for  some  one  to  take 
command.  Lee,  encouraged  by  his  unwar 
ranted  success  in  frightening  Washington 
and  neutralizing  the  peninsular  attack,  had 
determined  to  carry  the  war  into  the  North 
by  way  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  He  still 
hoped  that  Maryland  might  rise  against  the 
oppressor  and  that  it  might  be  possible  to 
dictate  a  peace  on  northern  soil.  There  was 
no  better  general  to  rally  and  reorganize  the 
discouraged  Union  armies  than  McClellan, 
but  before  his  new  command  was  two  weeks 


1862:  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION   101 

old  he  again  missed  his  chance.  Through 
a  captured  despatch  he  learned  of  a  risky 
division  of  Lee's  army,  leaving  either  half 
at  his  mercy  for  a  few  hours.  He  thought 
it  over  all  night  instead  of  moving  on  the 
instant,  and  Lee  closed  up  before  it  was  too 
late.  Paralleling  Lee's  army,  as  it  moved 
north,  McClellan  had  more  than  twice  his 
numbers.  On  September  17,  1862,  the  armies 
met  along  the  banks  of  Antietam  Creek, 
near  Sharpsburg,  Maryland,  where  Lee  made 
a  brilliant  stand.  McClellan  entered  the 
fight  with  87,000  Union  troops,  and  with 
rifled  cannon  with  which  to  oppose  Lee's 
ragged  50,000.  The  aggregate  losses  ran 
to  more  than  20,000,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
day  Lee,  escaping  in  defiance  of  all  the  laws 
of  strategy,  started  his  retreat.  The  southern 
discouragement  at  the  complete  failure  of 
Maryland  to  rise  to  expel  the  Union  forces 
was  surpassed  by  northern  grief  and  bitter 
ness  that  McClellan  had  not  crushed  Lee,  and 
would  not  follow  him  in  vigorous  pursuit. 

Without  molestation  the  Confederate  army 
returned  into  Virginia,  and  the  first  invasion 
of  the  North  was  over.  McClellan  settled 
down  to  reorganize  and  rest.  The  hints  and 
orders  of  the  President  that  he  cross  the 
Potomac  and  resume  the  fight,  he  disregarded. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  he  failed  to  realize  that 
public  opinion  was  a  force  to  be  estimated 
and  accounted  for,  not  to  be  ignored,  and 
that  it  was  Abraham  Lincoln  who  was  com- 


102  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

mander-in-chief  of  the  armies  and  President 
of  the  United  States.  Five  weeks  after  An- 
tietam,  McClellan  entered  Virginia,  having 
allowed  Lee  ample  time  to  prepare  to  re 
ceive  him.  In  the  first  week  in  November  he 
had  an  advance  in  contemplation.  But  on 
November  7  he  was  relieved  of  his  command 
by  Lincoln  who  had  at  last  yielded  to  the 
critics.  Unsatisfactory  as  McClellan  was, 
he  had  no  known  superior  in  the  Union 
ranks,  and  Burnside,  his  second  successor, 
failed  as  signally  as  Pope.  But  this  time 
his  military  eclipse  was  final.  As  a  spec 
tator  he  watched  the  rest  of  the  war,  gaining 
comfort  from  the  sympathies  of  his  adherents 
and  considering  himself  the  victim  of  vicious 
politics.  "I  think  that  I  have  done  all  that 
can  be  asked  in  twice  saving  the  country," 
was  his  reflection. 

The  career  of  McClellan  illustrates  the 
unhappy  mixture  of  politics  and  war  that 
impeded  the  Union  cause.  In  the  Confed 
eracy,  independence  was  the  one  important 
object.  To  it  all  other  needs  were  subor 
dinate.  But  Lincoln  was  forced  not  only 
to  maintain  the  Union,  but  to  keep  together 
a  majority  that  could  control  his  party  and 
his  Congress,  in  order  that  such  maintenance 
might  be  assured.  The  unquestioning  loy 
alty  of  the  spring  of  1861  never  returned. 
The  Democratic  party  resumed  its  old  work 
of  obstruction.  Republican  radicals  and 
conservatives  both  added  their  embarrass- 


1862:   McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION   103 

ments.  In  no  phase  of  his  policy  was  his 
task  more  intricate  during  1862  than  it  was 
with  the  citizens  of  the  border  states. 

During  the  political  campaign  of  1860, 
through  the  trying  months  before  his  inaugu 
ration,  and  as  late  as  the  battle  of  Bull  Run, 
Lincoln  and  his  party  stood  steadily  for  the 
permanence  of  the  Union,  no  aggression 
against  slavery  in  the  states,  and  the  restor 
ation  of  the  Constitution  as  it  was  before 
secession.  But  public  opinion  developed 
during  1861,  until  it  became  apparent  to  all 
that  slavery  was  the  fundamental  cause  of 
the  loss  of  peace  and  life  and  property  afflict 
ing  the  United  States.  It  became  doubtful 
whether  even  the  Union  could  be  preserved; 
but  if  it  was,  the  spirit  which  maintained 
it  could  not  be  content  until  it  had  ended 
not  only  the  fact  of  resistance  to  the  law  but 
the  cause  which  had  produced  it.  Yet  four 
slave  states  stood  loyal  to  the  Union.  The 
abolition  of  slavery  by  force  of  arms  or  of 
determined  majority  would  fall  as  the  unfair 
reward  for  their  loyalty  upon  the  shoulders  of 
the  citizens  of  the  border  states.  To  avert 
this  injustice  and  satisfy  the  rights  of  these 
states  before  the  collapse  of  slavery,  which 
he  anticipated,  was  Lincoln's  hope  in  the 
winter  of  1861  and  1862. 

The  temper  of  the  Union  respecting  slavery, 
with  which  Lincoln  had  to  deal  in  his  nego 
tiations,  came  out  in  the  army,  in  Congress, 
and  in  public  opinion.  Twice  he  found  that 


104  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

subordinate  officers  went  more  rapidly  than 
he  could  follow.  Fremont,  in  August,  1801, 
issued  a  military  order  of  confiscation  which 
emancipated  the  slaves  of  persons  in  insur 
rection  against  the  United  States  within  his 
department.  Abolitionists  throughout  the 
North  received  the  proclamation  with  joy, 
—  which  may  have  been  Fremont's  motive 
for  issuing  it,  —  but  Lincoln,  after  vainly  giv 
ing  the  author  a  chance  to  modify  it,  him 
self  disallowed  it  in  a  general  order.  In 
the  next  spring,  Hunter,  within  a  southern 
department,  issued  a  similar  order,  which  was 
likewise  recalled.  The  comments  through 
out  the  North  upon  these  unauthorized  acts 
would  have  convinced  a  less  sagacious  poli 
tician  than  Lincoln  that  opinion  was  shift 
ing.  In  December,  1861,  Congress,  which 
had  resolved  in  July  that  the  war  was 
only  for  the  Union,  refused  to  re-enact  the 
resolution. 

Lincoln  continued  to  maintain  that  under 
no  conditions  could  Congress  touch  slavery 
in  the  states;  but  there  were  other  regions 
whose  dependence  upon  that  branch  of  the 
government  was  a  matter  of  prime  Republi 
can  creed.  Slavery,  in  the  District  of  Colum 
bia  and  in  the  territories,  early  came  under 
attack,  and  was  abolished  in  both  before 
the  summer  of  1862.  The  disposition  to 
abolish  was  not  entirely  humanitarian;  in 
part  it  was  vindictive,  and  the  desire  to 
punish,  which  could  not  encompass  aboli- 


1862:  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION    105 

tion  in  the  states,  revealed  itself  in  acts  of 
confiscation.  The  war  session  of  Congress, 
in  1861,  passed  a  confiscation  act  which  may 
be  regarded  as  the  first  formal  step  against 
slavery.  Butler,  in  Virginia,  had  already 
devised  the  term  "contraband  of  war,"  to 
apply  to  slaves  escaping  into  Union  lines, 
and  had  used  the  contraband  as  camp  labor 
ers.  The  law  of  August,  1861,  declared  the 
confiscation  of  all  persons  or  property  used 
against  the  United  States.  Lincoln  signed 
the  act  reluctantly,  for  retaliation  was  far 
from  his  desire.  He  was  forever  looking  for 
ward  to  the  time  when  the  war  would  be 
over,  and  every  act  of  unnecessary  cruelty 
would  be  a  bar  to  reconciliation.  The  second 
confiscation  act,  of  July,  1862,  was  even 
further  from  his  wish.  This  declared  that 
after  sixty  days  all  the  property  of  persons 
holding  military  or  civil  office  under  the 
Confederacy  should  be  liable  to  public  con 
fiscation.  It  is  notable  among  civil  wars  that 
these  acts  were  never  fully  carried  out.  Save 
in  a  few  isolated  instances,  the  most  notable 
being  Arlington,  the  home  of  General  Lee, 
such  property  as  was  taken  by  the  United 
States  was  restored  at  the  close  of  the  war. 
No  general  confiscation  or  proscription  was 
ever  applied. 

The  temper  toward  the  South  shown  in 
the  debates  on  these  measures  served  notice 
on  Lincoln  that,  Constitution  or  no  Consti 
tution,  the  slavery  matter  was  imminent, 


106  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

and  he  tried  to  save  the  border  states.  Com 
pensated  emancipation,  with  the  consent  of 
those  concerned,  was  the  measure  which  he 
advocated  as  just  and  expedient.  It  was 
just,  because  the  holder  of  slave  property 
had  in  no  way  violated  the  law,  or  the  tra 
dition  of  his  region,  and  ought  not  to  be 
forced  to  carry  the  whole  cost  of  a  change  in 
national  sentiment.  It  was  expedient  be 
cause  it  would  at  once  reward  those  who  had 
been  loyal  in  a  time  of  stress,  and  discour 
age  the  enemy.  After  citizens  of  Maryland 
or  Kentucky  had  sold  their  slaves  to  the 
United  States  there  would  be  no  chance  of 
their  ever  joining  the  Confederacy;  while  the 
financial  advantage  given  to  them  might 
easily  induce  citizens  of  the  Confederacy  to 
press  for  peace  and  compensation.  Indeed 
it  was  a  habit  of  Lincoln  to  figure  out  the 
number  of  days  in  which  the  cost  of  keeping 
up  the  Union  armies  would  equal  the  value 
of  all  the  slaves,  and  to  urge  that  if  only  as 
a  measure  of  economy  it  would  pay  to  pur 
chase  every  slave  in  the  United  States. 

Acting  upon  his  policy,  Lincoln,  in  March, 
1862,  urged  Congress  to  offer  to  co-operate 
with  any  state  desiring  to  emancipate  its 
slaves,  and  held  during  the  spring  and  sum 
mer  a  series  of  conferences  with  represen 
tatives  of  the  border  states  in  which  he  urged 
his  measure  upon  them.  Congress  responded 
favorably  to  the  President's  suggestion,  but 
the  border  states  refused  to  act.  Self-interest 


1862 :  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION     107 

as  well  as  obstinacy  stood  in  the  road  of 
their  compliance.  In  1862  secession  had  not 
been  proved  a  failure,  and  if  the  South  were 
ever  recognized  as  independent  the  border 
states  would  desire  to  join  the  Confeder 
acy.  The  credit  of  the  United  States  at  this 
time  was  none  too  good.  Its  bonds,  in  which 
payment  for  slaves  would  probably  have 
been  made,  were  below  par,  and  should  the 
Union  fail  and  the  bonds  collapse,  the  border 
citizens  would  have  lost  both  their  slaves 
and  their  remuneration.  Beside  interest,  as 
it  appeared  to  the  border  states,  there  also 
stood  in  the  road  of  adjustment  the  reluc 
tance  of  Democrats  to  co-operate  heartily 
in  any  measure  urged  by  Lincoln.  By  the 
middle  of  July  Lincoln  gave  up  his  idea  of 
compensated  emancipation  as  hopeless,  but 
reached  at  the  same  time  the  conclusion  that 
emancipation  was  bound  to  come. 

Congress  could  not  emancipate  a  single 
slave  in  any  state,  but  Lincoln  believed 
that  the  President,  as  commander-in-chief ,  in 
time  of  war,  could  properly  harass  the  enemy 
by  an  attack  upon  their  property.  John 
Quincy  Adams  had  long  since  told  his  south 
ern  opponents  that  the  only  menace  to  slavery 
was  the  war  power  of  the  President,  which 
they  threatened  to  provoke.  And  now 
Lincoln  reached  the  conviction  that  only  a 
military  emancipation  could  save  the  Union. 
It  was  not  the  slave  that  he  considered 
primarily,  though  he  adhered  to  his  belief 


108  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

that  "If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing  is 
wrong."  When  in  the  summer  Horace 
Greeley  joined  the  throng  of  abolitionists 
that  were  worrying  the  President  to  convert 
the  war  into  a  war  against  slavery,  Lincoln 
had  already  reached  his  conclusion  but  had 
not  announced  it.  Greeley  called  his  mani 
festo  "The  Prayer  of  Twenty  Millions  of 
People,"  and  it  was  typical  of  the  man  and 
the  reformer.  Extreme,  ill-founded,  far  from 
true  in  the  numerical  backing  which  it 
claimed,  it  is  only  another  evidence  of  the 
popular  pressure.  To  it,  Lincoln  replied  in  a 
personal  letter  which  went  directly  to  the 
point,  and  revealed  himself  as  standing  where 
he  always  had  stood.  "My  paramount  ob 
ject  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either  to 
save  or  destroy  slavery,"  he  wrote.  "If  I 
could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any 
slave,  I  would  do  it.  And  if  I  could  save  it 
by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I  would  do  it. 
And  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some,  and 
leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that." 
On  the  constitutional  side,  if  any  slaves  were 
to  be  freed  nothing  short  of  a  constitu 
tional  amendment,  save  the  war  power  of 
the  President,  could  accomplish  it. 

When  the  border  states  refrained  from  ac 
cepting  the  principle  of  compensated  eman 
cipation,  Lincoln  determined  that  he  must 
go  along  without  them,  and  that  at  a  suitable 
time  it  would  be  expedient  to  rally  the  North 
and  discourage  the  Confederacy  by  executive 


1862:  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION    109 

emancipation.  The  first  draft  of  his  proc 
lamation  was  written  early  in  July,  but  it 
was  not  communicated  to  the  cabinet  until 
towards  the  end  of  the  month,  after  Congress 
had  adjourned.  Then  it  was  presented  for 
information,  not  for  debate.  The  man  whom 
Seward  had  accused  of  having  neither  policy 
nor  ability  to  frame  one,  had  reached  his 
conclusion  unaided,  and  had  announced  it 
at  his  own  time.  Verbal  amendments  to 
the  proclamation  were  made,  but  the  only 
serious  criticism  came  from  the  secretary 
of  state,  who  questioned  the  expediency  of 
issuing  such  a  proclamation  after  as  disas 
trous  a  campaign  as  the  Peninsula  had  been. 
Issued  in  July  or  August,  it  would  appear  as 
a  desperate  effort  in  a  forlorn  cause.  Con 
vinced  by  the  suggestion,  Lincoln  withheld 
the  proclamation  and  prayed  for  such  a  vic 
tory  as  might  give  it  a  proper  appearance. 
When  Pope  collapsed  at  second  Bull  Run, 
his  disappointment  was  great.  When  Mc- 
Clellan  managed  to  check  Lee  at  Antietam 
with  nearly  twice  the  latter Js  force,  it  was 
decided  that  a  good-enough  victory,  at  least 
the  only  one  in  sight,  had  been  attained. 

On  September  22,  1862,  Lincoln  issued 
the  preliminary  proclamation  of  emancipa 
tion.  Announcing  first  his  continued  belief 
in  the  principle  of  compensation,  and  calling 
attention  to  the  confiscation  acts  of  Congress, 
he  declared  that  on  January  1,  1863,  "all 
persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State  or 


110  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

designated  part  of  a  State  the  people  whereof 
shall  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United 
States  shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and 
forever  free." 

The  North  was  taken  by  surprise  when  the 
emancipation  proclamation  appeared,  and 
misunderstood  its  bearings  then,  as  it  has, 
generally,  ever  since.  Slavery  was  not  af 
fected  by  the  preliminary  proclamation,  or 
by  the  final  proclamation,  which  appeared 
on  January  1,  in  any  of  the  border  states, 
or  in  any  portion  of  the  Confederacy  not 
in  actual  resistance  to  the  United  States. 
Over  citizens  of  the  United  States  not  engaged 
in  insurrection  the  President  could  have  no 
control,  and  claimed  none.  So  far  as  his 
act  had  legal  weight,  it  applied  only  to  per 
sons  within  what  he  designated  as  the  rebel 
lious  area  in  his  final  proclamation.  Yet  so 
long  as  these  remained  rebellious  and  con 
tinued  to  acknowledge  only  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Confederate  government,  they  could 
not  be  reached  and  the  proclamation  could 
not  be  enforced  against  them.  After  they 
had  submitted  in  any  portion  of  the  area, 
and  become  peaceful,  it  is  highly  doubtful 
whether  any  act  of  the  President  seques 
trating  their  property  was  lawful.  Only  im 
peachment  could  punish  him  for  not  aiding 
them  to  recover  their  property,  but  it  is 
hard  to  believe  that  any  United  States  court 
would  have  decided  that  their  title  to  their 
slaves  was  extinguished.  The  emancipation 


1862:  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION    111 

proclamation  did  not  free  the  slaves,  but  it 
served  notice  that  the  war  had  become  an 
attack  upon  slavery  as  well  as  disunion, 
while  legal  steps  sanctioned  the  policy  an 
nounced  by  Lincoln  in  less  than  three  years. 

Emancipation  by  constitutional  amend 
ment  had  been  urged  in  many  congresses, 
and  was  defeated  by  adverse  majorities  until 
the  end  of  1864.  After  1862  it  became  an 
administration  measure,  but  the  passage  of 
an  amendment  accomplishing  it  was  deferred 
until  February,  1865.  In  the  ten  ensuing 
months  the  states  gave  it  their  support. 
Three-fourths  of  all,  as  the  Constitution 
prescribes,  had  approved  it  when  Seward 
issued,  on  December  18,  1865,  his  proclama 
tion  declaring  that  the  thirteenth  amend 
ment  had  been  adopted.  Incorporating  in 
its  body  the  phrases  of  the  memorable  north 
west  ordinance  of  1787,  it  declared  that 
"Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude 
...  shall  exist  within  the  United  States,  or 
any  place  subject  to  their  jurisdiction." 

The  hope  of  Lincoln  that  the  emancipation 

E reclamation  would  consolidate  the  North  be- 
ind  him  was  not  realized  at  once.  Abroad, 
the  feeling  towards  the  United  States  imme 
diately  grew  better,  but  at  home  his  act  only 
widened  the  cleavage  among  factions,  and 
brought  him  rebuke  at  the  congressional 
elections  of  1862.  Seward  had  believed,  in 
the  loyal  outburst  after  Sumter,  that  all 
party  lines  in  the  North  were  gone;  but  they 


112  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

were  only  submerged  in  a  tide  of  emotion 
that  ebbed  away  in  the  second  year  of  the 
war. 

At  best,  Lincoln  was  supported  by  a  tem 
porary  fusion  of  diverse  elements.  The 
abolitionists  were  the  radicals  among  his 
backers  and  had  Chase  as  their  spokesman 
in  the  cabinet.  Seward  represented  the 
moderate  Republicans  who  were  unionists 
above  all  else.  The  war  Democrats,  who  had 
voted  for  Douglas  and  like  him  had  stood 
by  the  Union,  claimed  McClellan  as  one  of 
their  number  and  were  reached  by  Stanton, 
secretary  of  war.  Bates  and  Blair  were  bor 
der  state  Democrats,  whose  friends  expected 
the  Union  to  be  maintained  without  damage 
to  slavery.  No  single  faction  could  control 
a  majority  in  the  North,  and  it  was  not 
certain  that  any  single  one  could  be  spared. 
Yet  to  harmonize  their  interests  was  an 
almost  impossible  task,  and  more  nearly 
broke  down  in  the  fall  of  1862  than  at  any 
other  time.  Always  among  the  avowed 
opposition  were  conservatives  who  sympa 
thized  with  the  South  and  denied  the  con 
stitutionality  of  coercion.  "Copperheads," 
as  they  came  to  be  called,  they  harassed  the 
President  in  his  every  act,  and  varied  in 
conduct  from  open  support  of  the  Confed 
eracy  to  severe  criticism  of  the  policy  of 
the  administration.  Lincoln  was  never  a 
good  executive  or  disciplinarian.  He  rarely 
thought  in  terms  of  efficient  administration. 


1862:  McCLELLAN  —  EMANCIPATION    113 

More  than  once  he  tried  to  save  law-breakers 
whose  friends  were  necessary  to  his  policy. 
But  the  fact  that  he  managed,  in  any  way,  to 
conduct  the  Union  cause  with  the  sort  of 
backing  that  he  had,  places  him  at  the  head 
of  the  world's  consummate  politicians. 

The  immediate  result  of  the  emancipation 
proclamation  was  discouraging.  Its  critics 
outshouted  its  supporters  in  the  North.  In 
the  elections  conservatives  everywhere  gained 
a  hearing  and  unseated  numerous  Repub 
licans.  In  1860  Lincoln  had  carried  every 
northern  state  except  New  Jersey.  In  1862 
his  party  was  ousted  in  a  solid  tier  of  states 
north  of  the  border: — New  York,  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
and  Wisconsin.  Only  by  a  bare  majority 
did  the  Republicans  retain  their  control  of 
Congress,  and  it  is  fair  to  regard  the  elec 
tion  as  a  general  vote  of  censure  implying 
lack  of  confidence  in  the  administration. 
The  backwoods  lawyer,  whom  political*  ma 
nipulation  had  seated  in  the  White  House, 
had  not  yet  convinced  his  country  of  his  essen 
tial  greatness.  His  followers  were  only  just 
beginning  to  identify  the  Republican  party 
with  the  Union,  and  to  maintain  that  the 
defeat  of  either  would  involve  the  downfall 
of  the  other.  The  war,  however,  had  to  go 
on.  McClellan  was  dismissed  immediately 
after  the  election,  and  the  country  entered 
upon  the  darkest  eight  months  in  its  history. 


CHAPTER  VII 

1862:   THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY 

THE  war  in  the  West  was  not  confined 
to  a  narrow  arena,  bounded  by  two  rival  cap 
itals  and  embracing  an  area  that  remained 
for  four  long  years  unchanged.  Instead, 
it  ranged  from  the  Ohio  River  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico  and  followed  up  the  tributaries  of 
the  Mississippi  until  it  reached  the  limit  of 
Confederate  resistance,  wherever  that  might 
be.  It  contained  few  scenes  of  marching  up 
and  down,  with  loud  confusion,  voluminous 
dust,  and  lack  of  progress,  but  was  a  con 
tinuous  development,  from  the  days  of  1861, 
when  loyal  citizens  of  Missouri  were  organ 
ized  into  a  committee  of  safety,  until,  after 
four  years,  the  armies  of  the  West  completed 
their  advance  down  the  Mississippi  Valley, 
around  the  Allegheny  Range,  and  up  against 
the  armies  of  Virginia  from  the  South. 

The  centre  of  the  stage  in  that  great  west 
ern  theatre  of  war  was  the  mouth  of  the 
Ohio  River,  where  the  straggling  town  of 
Cairo  stood  on  stilts  to  avoid  the  floods  which 
repeatedly  washed  over  the  southern  tip  of 
Illinois.  Here,  within  a  radius  of  twenty- 

115 


116  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

five  miles,  is  the  centre  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  whence  easy  routes  of  communication 
lead  in  every  direction.  The  Ohio  River, 
with  its  extensive  northern  tributaries,  great 
canals,  and  numerous  railroads,  afforded  to 
all  the  North  ready  access  to  this  point. 
Entering  the  Ohio,  from  the  south,  only  a 
few  miles  above  its  mouth,  come  two  other 
rivers  of  almost  equal  importance.  The 
Cumberland,  sweeping  down  from  the  moun 
tains  of  eastern  Kentucky,  could  be  as 
cended  easily  to  Nashville,  the  capital  of 
Tennessee.  South  of  the  Cumberland,  and 
parallel  to  it  near  its  mouth,  the  Tennessee 
empties  into  the  Ohio  the  drainage  of  several 
states.  The  Mississippi  River,  carrying  the 
waters  of  all  these,  gives  the  broadest  of 
natural  highways  to  the  sea. 

In  a  country  sparsely  settled,  where  no 
large  army  could  live  upon  the  near-by  land, 
but  must  carry  with  it  all  its  food,  munitions, 
and  clothing,  transportation  routes  were  of 
supreme  importance.  The  rivers  dominating 
the  Southwest  were  supplemented  by  two 
great  railways,  and  an  uncompleted  third, 
that  fixed  by  their  location  the  strategic 
centres  subordinate  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Ohio.  Some  twenty  miles  below  Cairo,  on 
the  Mississippi,  at  Columbus,  Kentucky, 
was  the  northern  terminus  of  the  Mobile 
and  Ohio  Railroad  which  ran  parallel  to 
the  Mississippi  and  furnished  connections 
to  New  Orleans  and  Mobile.  At  right  angles 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       117 

to  this  road,  and  not  far  south  of  the  great 
bend  of  the  Tennessee  River,  ran  the  most 
important  east  and  west  railway  of  the  South, 
the  Memphis  and  Charleston.  Cairo,  Colum 
bus,  and  the  mouths  of  the  Cumberland 
and  Tennessee  constituted  the  primary  stra 
tegic  centre;  the  secondary  centres  were  in  a 
line  along  this  road,  at  Memphis,  where  it 
touched  the  Mississippi,  at  Corinth,  where  it 
crossed  the  Mobile  and  Ohio,  and  at  Chat 
tanooga,  in  eastern  Tennessee,  where  it 
touched  the  Tennessee  River  and  was  met 
by  other  roads  from  both  Georgia  and  Vir 
ginia.  South  of  the  Memphis  and  Charleston, 
and  parallel  to  it,  another  line  to  the  east 
extended  from  Vicksburg,  through  Jackson, 
into  Alabama  and  Georgia.  It  was  com 
pleted  after  the  war  began. 

The  Civil  War  was  well  advanced  before 
the  importance  of  the  western  field  was 
recognized.  Habit,  as  well  as  Washington 
and  Richmond,  turned  general  attention 
towards  the  East.  In  the  West  heavy  fighting 
went  almost  unnoticed  save  by  the  north 
west  states  whose  boys  were  being  killed, 
and  generals  acquired  real  skill  in  the  routine 
performance  of  their  duties  before  the  public 
discovered  their  existence  and  put  them  in 
the  illuminated  places  of  eminence. 

Missouri,  the  old  storm  centre  of  the  slavery 
quarrel,  was  torn  to  pieces  by  the  divergent 
forces  of  Union  and  secession.  Her  governor 
in  1861,  a  rampant  secessionist,  thought 


118  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

to  organize  his  state  for  the  Confederacy. 
"Your  requisition  in  my  judgment,"  he  re 
plied  to  Lincoln  on  the  call  for  volunteers, 
"is  illegal,  unconstitutional,  and  revolution 
ary  in  its  object,  inhuman  and  diabolical, 
and  cannot  be  complied  with."  Opinion  in 
St.  Louis  ran  high.  On  a  street  car  a  splut 
tering  youth  was  heard  to  bluster  that 

"Things  have  come  to  a  pretty  pass 

when  a  free  people  can't  choose  their  own 
flag.  Where  I  come  from  if  a  man  dares  to 
say  a  word  in  favor  of  the  Union  we  hang 
him  to  a  limb  of  the  first  tree  we  come  to." 
He  subsided  only  when  his  neighbor  retorted 
that  "after  all,  we  are  not  so  intolerant  in 
St.  Louis  as  we  might  be;  I  have  not  seen 
a  single  rebel  hung  yet,  nor  heard  of  one; 
there  are  plenty  of  them  who  ought  to  be, 
however."  The  youth's  excitement  was 
provoked  by  the  seizure,  in  May,  of  the 
arsenal,  and  the  arrest  of  the  Confederate 
militia  by  the  combined  efforts  of  Francis 
P.  Blair,  Jr.,  and  a  captain  of  the  regular 
army,  Nathaniel  Lyon. 

During  the  summer  months,  until  his 
death  at  Wilson's  Creek  in  August,  Lyon 
held  Missouri.  There  was  heavy  fighting 
in  the  southern  half  of  the  state,  nominally 
directed  by  Major-General  John  C.  Fremont, 
from  his  headquarters  in  St.  Louis.  But 
until  Fremont  was  removed  in  November 
no  constructive  plan  was  adopted  for  the 
protection  of  the  division  of  the  West.  Hal- 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       119 

leek,  who  succeeded  him,  had  command  of 
the  Union  forces  of  the  upper  Mississippi 
Valley,  and  as  far  east  as  the  Cumberland 
River.  Next  to  him,  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  and 
Kentucky,  Buell  was  in  charge. 

The  strategic  importance  of  the  Cairo 
region  was  acted  upon  by  the  Confederate 
leaders  before  it  was  seen  elsewhere.  Leon- 
idas  Polk,  after  he  had  laid  aside  his  bishop 
ric  and  gone  back  to  the  army  of  his  youth, 
seized  the  river  end  of  the  Mobile  and  Ohio 
railway,  at  Columbus,  Kentucky,  and  be 
gan  the  fortification  of  the  Tennessee  and 
Cumberland  rivers  at  points  where  they  are 
only  twelve  miles  apart,  near  the  southern 
boundary  of  Kentucky.  His  superior  officer, 
Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  in  command  of  the 
western  forces  of  the  Confederacy,  followed 
up  Polk's  design,  hurried  on  the  construction 
of  the  Cumberland  and  Tennessee  forts,  and 
stretched  his  line  up  into  central  Kentucky. 
With  divisions  of  his  army  in  western,  mid 
dle,  and  eastern  Tennessee,  he  prepared  for 
a  general  advance  through  Kentucky  to  the 
Ohio  River,  despite  the  neutrality  which 
Governor  Magoffin  of  that  state  had  excitedly 
proclaimed.  The  keen  regard  of  the  Con 
federate  leaders  for  the  sovereignty  of  their 
own  states  was  blunted  in  the  case  of  a 
neutral  state.  When  Halleck  took  com 
mand  in  November,  1861,  Johnston  had 
been  perfecting  his  first  line  of  defence  for 
two  months. 


120  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

The  first  step  against  Johnston  was  taken 
in  September  by  one  of  Fremont's  subor 
dinates  named  Grant,  a  retired  regular  cap 
tain,  who  had  entered  a  volunteer  regiment 
of  Illinois,  and  had  speedily  been  given  a 
brigade  of  the  inexperienced,  disorderly,  west 
ern  regiments.  At  the  end  of  August,  Grant 
was  assigned  control  of  Missouri  and  Illi 
nois,  below  St.  Louis,  and  on  September  4  \ 
he  established  his  headquarters  at  Cairo, 
which  he  estimated  at  once  at  its  strategic 
importance.  A  few  days  later  he  seized 
commanding  stations  at  the  mouths  of  the 
Cumberland  and  Tennessee,  and  kept  garri 
sons  not  only  at  Cairo  but  at  Paducah.  The 
citizens  of  the  latter  had  expected  to  welcome 
the  Confederate  outposts  when  Grant  moved 
in.  The  "neutral"  governor  of  Kentucky 
inquired  by  what  right  the  sovereignty  of  the 
state  was  thus  invaded.  When  Halleck 
arrived,  Grant  had  the  nucleus  of  an  army 
waiting  for  him  at  the  place  where  it  could 
best  be  used. 

While  McClellan  was  drilling  along  the 
Potomac,  Grant  lay  waiting  at  Cairo  with  a 
few  regiments.  The  way  to  attack  John 
ston's  line  of  defence  was  obvious,  but  not 
until  the  middle  of  the  winter  would  Halleck 
authorize  a  joint  movement  by  Grant  and 
the  gunboats  on  the  river  against  the  Con 
federate  forts  that  closed  the  Cumberland, 
Tennessee,  and  Mississippi  to  further  ad 
vance, —  forts  Donelson,  Henry,  and  Island 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       121 

No.  10.  The  day  after  the  orders  to  move  on 
Fort  Henry  were  received,  the  expedition  was 
on  its  way.  The  spirit  of  its  leader,  who  had 
almost  no  professional  soldiers  under  him, 
has  a  novel  ring  among  the  notes  of  protest 
and  explanation  that  crowd  the  records. 
Movements  were  slow  because  of  mud  and 
rain,  he  wrote;  but  this,  however,  "will  op 
erate  worse  upon  the  enemy,  if  he  should 
come  out  to  meet  us,  than  upon  us."  With 
a  celerity  not  seen  thus  far  in  any  operation 
of  the  war,  the  first  Confederate  fine  was 
broken. 

The  advance  upon  Fort  Henry  began  on 
February  2,  and  ended  four  days  later  in 
the  surrender  of  the  fort.  Its  commander 
had  foreseen  the  futility  of  a  stand  here,  and 
had  slipped  out  most  of  his  troops,  marching 
them  across  the  narrow  neck  of  land  to  Fort 
Donelson,  before  the  attack  began.  The 
whole  Confederate  line  was  thrown  into 
a  panic  by  the  prospect  of  a  movement  on 
Donelson,  since,  should  this  fall,  Nashville 
lay  undefended  and  Tennessee  would  be 
opened  to  the  Union  invader. 

Immediately  upon  the  capture  of  Fort 
Henry,  Grant  prepared  to  take  Fort  Don 
elson,  and  called  upon  Halleck  for  re- 
enforcements.  Before  the  gunboats  could  go 
down  the  Tennessee  and  come  back  up  the 
Cumberland  the  army  had  invested  the 
fort  and  its  20,000  defenders  with  some 
15,000  men,  who  were  shortly  re-enforced 


122  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

to  27,000.  The  panic  existing  within  the 
Confederate  army  was  unknown  to  Grant, 
but  he,  as  well  as  Johnston,  could  see  the 
strategic  outcome. 

Within  Fort  Donelson  private  apprehen 
sions  were  added  to  public  fears.  Floyd, 
in  command,  had  been  secretary  of  war 
in  Buchanan's  cabinet,  and  was  popularly 
believed  to  have  betrayed  his  post  by  dis 
tributing  United  States  stores  where  the 
Confederacy  could  get  them.  His  dishonest 
intent  has  been  well-nigh  explained  away,  but 
the  incompetence  which  he  had  shown  in  the 
war  department,  added  to  his  fear  of  personal 
capture,  destroyed  what  small  usefulness  he 
had.  With  the  concurrence  of  his  subor 
dinates,  he  fled.  His  second  in  command, 
Pillow,  escaped  with  him.  Buckner,  the 
third  in  rank,  stood  by  the  fort,  loaded  up 
the  haversacks  of  his  men,  and  organized 
a  sortie  in  the  hope  of  saving  the  army. 

On  the  morning  of  February  15,  the  United 
States  army  stood,  wet  and  unhappy,  on  the 
rough,  frozen  mud  around  Fort  Donelson. 
Its  commander  was  holding  a  conference 
with  Foote  aboard  one  of  the  gunboats  in 
the  Cumberland,  and  was  contemplating 
the  unpleasantness  of  a  siege.  As  he  landed 
for  the  ride  back  to  camp,  he  learned  that 
the  Confederates  had  started  an  attack.  Sur 
prised  by  this,  for  he  had  had  no  idea  of 
having  a  fight  unless  he  provoked  it,  Grant 
hurried  back.  He  understood  Buckner's  plan 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       123 

to  escape  only  when  he  knew  that  the  troops 
were  carrying  their  haversacks.  To  rally 
his  startled  brigades,  and  spring  a  counter 
attack  against  that  portion  of  the  Confed 
erate  line  which  was  being  abandoned,  took 
little  time.  Not  over  4000  got  away;  the 
others  returned  to  the  fort.  At  daybreak  on 
the  16th  the  Union  commander  could  send 
in  his  laconic  reply  to  a  request  for  terms: 
"No  terms  except  an  unconditional  and 
immediate  surrender  can  be  accepted.  I 
propose  to  move  immediately  upon  your 
works."  Buckner  surrendered  nearly  15,000 
troops  that  day.  Nine  days  later,  Nash 
ville,  the  capital  of  Tennessee,  was  occupied 
by  detachments  from  both  Grant  and  Buell, 
without  a  fight. 

The  spectacular  capture  of  forts  Henry  and 
Donelson,  coming  at  a  time  when  McClellan 
was  just  preparing  to  move  into  the  Penin 
sula,  and  when  Union  victories  were  few  and 
far  between,  made  Grant  a  major-general  of 
volunteers  and  ended  the  period  of  hearty 
co-operation  from  his  chief,  Halleck.  Though 
rebuffing  Grant's  first  overtures  upon  the 
campaign,  Halleck  had  finally  worked  ear 
nestly  with  Grant  and  Foote.  Official  credit 
for  the  success  came  to  him  as  chief  in  com 
mand,  and  his  department  was  extended  to 
include  the  army  of  Buell.  Hereafter  his 
support  ceased  to  be  either  regular  or  vig 
orous,  and  suspicions  of  the  competence  of 
Grant  entered  his  mind.  So  suspicious  was 


124  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

he,  that  the  immediate  advance  up  the  rivers 
which  Grant  desired  was  forbidden,  until 
Johnston  had  organized  his  defence  along 
the  second  Confederate  line,  Memphis,  Cor 
inth,  and  Chattanooga. 

The  logical  termination  of  the  Donelson 
campaign  was  left  to  Pope,  who  was,  in 
March,  sent  against  the  forts  in  the  Mis 
sissippi  near  New  Madrid  and  Island  No.  10. 
After  manoeuvring  the  enemy  out  of  the 
village,  with  the  co-operation  of  Foote's 
gunboats  he  compelled  the  surrender  of  the 
island,  receiving  some  7000  prisoners  from 
its  garrison.  Missouri  hereafter  was  detached 
from  the  main  Confederate  line,  and  though 
much  fighting  remained  to  be  done,  in  a 
population  that  was  divided  against  itself, 
it  ceased  to  play  a  part  in  the  larger  strategy 
of  the  war. 

Upon  the  extension  of  his  command  in 
March,  Halleck  directed  from  St.  Louis  two 
considerable  armies  in  the  field,  that  of  Buell 
at  Nashville,  and  that  of  Grant  at  Fort  Henry. 
It  is  difficult  to  prove  that  he  had  a  deliberate 
plan  of  campaign.  The  most  probable  aim 
appears  to  have  been  to  unite  the  two  forces 
at  some  point  on  the  Tennessee  River,  near 
the  crossing  of  the  Mobile  and  Ohio  and 
the  Memphis  and  Charleston  railways, 
from  which  point  the  latter  railway  could 
be  broken.  He  hoped  to  induce  the  enemy 
to  retreat  from  Corinth.  The  destruction  of 
the  hostile  army  appears  not  to  have  been 


18C2:  THE   MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       125 

undertaken.  It  was  the  occupation  of  points 
that  dominated  Halleck's  mind.  Remote 
from  the  scene  of  action,  perplexed  by  a 
double  manoeuvre,  and  aggravated  by  the 
political  situation  in  Missouri,  he  rarely 
knew  the  exact  status  at  the  front,  and 
directed  a  less  successful  campaign  than  his 
subordinates  could  have  carried  out  alone,  or 
than  he  would  have  carried  out  if  in  the  field. 
The  success  of  the  occupation  of  the  line 
of  the  Memphis  and  Charleston  depended 
upon  the  celerity  with  which  Grant  and 
Buell  brought  their  armies  together,  before 
the  Confederate  line  could  be  re-formed. 
Johnston  had  withdrawn  his  force  from 
central  Kentucky  upon  the  fall  of  Nash 
ville,  and  had  hurried  from  Murfreesboro  to 
Huntsville,  in  Alabama,  and  thence  down 
the  left  bank  of  the  Tennessee  towards 
Corinth.  At  Corinth,  Beauregard  organized 
the  troops  on  the  left  of  the  Confederate 
line.  By  the  last  week  in  March  the  two 
forces  had  been  joined  without  interfer 
ence,  Johnston  had  assumed  command  of  the 
whole,  and  was  preparing  not  only  to  de 
stroy  Grant  and  Buell,  in  succession,  but  to 
march  across  the  lost  region  to  the  Ohio. 
He  had  50,000  troops,  with  whom  to  march, 
as  he  told  them,  "to  a  decisive  victory  over 
the  agrarian  mercenaries  sent  to  subjugate 
and  despoil  you  of  your  liberties."  It  was  a 
fiction  much  used  in  proclamations  by  Con 
federate  leaders  that  the  northern  troops 


126  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

were  both  cowards  and  mercenaries,  while 
theirs  were  gentle,  brave,  and  chivalrous. 
Yet  the  Confederate,  Bragg,  only  a  few 
days  before  this  proclamation  of  Johnston, 
had  written  that  the  whole  country  "seems 
paralyzed.  .  .  .  The  unrestrained  habits  of 
plunder  and  pillage  have  done  much  to  pro 
duce  this  state  of  affairs  and  reconcile  the 
people  of  the  country  to  the  approach  of  the 
enemy,  who  certainly  do  them  less  harm  than 
our  own  troops." 

Grant  had  been  prevented  from  acting 
quickly  by  the  perplexing  and  contradictory 
orders  of  Halleck,  but  toward  the  end  of 
March  he  threw  his  army  into  camp  along 
the  left  bank  of  the  Tennessee,  at  Pittsburg 
Landing,  while  Buell,  entirely  independent  of 
his  control,  was  hurrying  up  from  the  north 
east.  Neither  Grant,  nor  Sherman,  in  whom 
he  placed  complete  confidence,  anticipated 
a  vigorous  attack  from  Johnston,  and  the 
disorder  which  prevailed  in  the  Union  camp 
is  explained  rather  than  excused  by  the 
extreme  rawness  of  his  troops.  Most  of  the 
men  had  never  been  under  fire,  or  even  seen 
the  enemy.  When,  in  the  early  morning  of 
April  6,  Johnston  opened  a  general  engage 
ment,  it  was  several  hours  before  the  Union 
leaders  realized  that  it  was  more  than  one 
of  the  skirmishes  that  had  amused  their 
outposts  daily  for  two  weeks.  W7hen  they 
learned  the  magnitude  of  the  attack,  it  was 
almost  too  late  to  save  the  day. 


/•  i 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       127 

With  somewhat  over  40,000  troops,  John 
ston  entered  at  daybreak  upon  a  pitched 
battle,  that  raged  all  day  between  Shiloh 
Church  and  Pittsburg  Landing,  and  left  his 
army  that  night  on  the  Union  line,  to  eat 
captured  rations  and  sleep  in  federal  tents. 
Grant  had  some  2000  more,  and  always 
maintained  that,  without  aid,  he  could  have 
won  the  battle.  On  both  sides,  regiments 
broke  and  fled  repeatedly,  the  incessant 
hammering  getting  on  the  nerves  of  the 
green  farmers'  boys  in  either  army.  John 
ston  himself  was  slain  in  the  afternoon  while 
trying  to  rally  one  frightened  regiment.  His 
successor,  Beauregard,  prepared  that  night 
to  fight  it  out  on  the  7th,  and  telegraphed  to 
Richmond  that  victory  was  already  won. 
"I  am  able  to  announce  to  you,  with  entire 
confidence,"  wrote  Davis  in  a  special  mes 
sage  to  the  Confederate  Congress,  "that  it 
has  pleased  Almighty  God  to  crown  the 
Confederate  arms  with  a  glorious  and  de 
cisive  victory  over  our  invaders." 

The  Confederate  rejoicing  was  somewhat 
premature,  however.  On  the  night  of  the 
6th,  Buell  came  up  with  20,000  fresh  troops 
in  the  Army  of  the  Ohio.  They  were  tired 
with  forced  marching,  but  their  nerves  had 
not  been  unstrung  by  fight  and  slaughter. 
On  the  morning  of  the  7th  they  took  the 
front,  and  before  the  day  was  done  the  Con 
federate  army  was  in  retreat  towards  Corinth. 

Among  the  battles  of  the  Civil  War,  this 


128  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

engagement  at  Shiloh,  or  Pittsburg  Landing, 
as  southern  writers  prefer  to  call  it,  has  evoked 
more  acrimonious  dispute  than  any  other. 
On  any  basis  it  was  a  great  fight,  with  100,000 
men  engaged,  and  20,000  of  them  killed  or 
wounded  at  the  close  of  the  second  day.  It 
has  been  asked,  —  Was  Grant  surprised?  — 
Was  he  defeated  on  the  6th?  —  Did  Buell's 
army  save  him?  The  armies  of  the  Ten 
nessee  and  the  Ohio  have  answered  all  these 
differently  when  they  have  gathered  at  their 
camp-fires  and  reunions.  In  part,  they  will 
remain  forever  unanswered,  but  it  seems 
clear  from  Grant's  own  words  that  he  was 
unprepared  for  an  engagement  of  such  mag 
nitude.  Yet  he  kept  his  courage,  re-formed 
his  broken  lines,  admitted  no  defeat,  and  it 
is  by  no  means  certain  that  Buell's  army  was 
indispensable  to  his  salvation. 

McClellan,  in  the  East,  was  still  worrying 
his  way  up  the  Peninsula  when  Shiloh  added 
the  second  to  the  great  Union  victories  in 
the  West.  Halleck,  aroused  by  the  size  of 
the  battle,  hurried  down  from  St.  Louis  to 
reorganize  the  armies,  and  resume  his  scru 
tiny  of  Grant.  Donelson  had  begun  with 
Grant  absent  from  the  field;  at  Shiloh  he 
was  unprepared;  and  his  chief  may  be  par 
doned  for  wondering  whether  the  victories 
were  won  because  of  Grant's  efforts,  or  in 
spite  of  them. 

The  advance  of  the  army  had  been  slow 
when  Halleck  directed  it  from  St.  Louis; 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       129 

with  him  in  camp  it  was  still  more  delib 
erate  than  Beauregard's  retreat  to  Corinth. 
Slowly  and  carefully,  as  all  the  books  of 
military  tactics  prescribe,  Halleck  made  his 
steps  toward  the  railway  crossing  that  had 
been  the  objective  of  his  campaign.  When 
he  was  at  last  ready  to  assault,  Beauregard 
evacuated  Corinth.  Memphis  fell  of  its 
own  weight  when  Corinth  became  a  Union 
camp.  By  the  middle  of  June  the  Mississippi 
was  clear  of  Confederate  armies  from  Cairo 
to  Vicksburg,  while  the  second  Confederate 
line  had  lost  its  centre  and  its  western  end. 
The  capture  of  New  Orleans  by  the  navy 
added  another  to  the  western  successes. 
From  the  view  of  the  war  department,  Hal 
leck  had  planned  and  executed  Donelson, 
Shiloh,  and  Corinth.  He  had  certainly 
brought  order  out  of  Fremont's  chaos.  It 
was  reasonable  that  he  should  be  summoned 
east  when  the  government  needed  an  ad 
viser.  When  the  campaign  in  the  Peninsula 
was  given  up,  he  was  made  general-in-chief. 
Pope  was  taken  east  about  the  same  time  to 
organize  the  army  of  Virginia  for  the  defence 
of  Washington. 

After  the  fall  of  Corinth,  the  alternatives 
confronting  Halleck's  army  pointed  towards 
the  immediate  occupation  of  Vicksburg, 
which  would  complete  the  opening  of  the 
Mississippi,  or  that  of  Chattanooga,  which 
would  control  the  junction  of  the  three  rail 
ways  from  Memphis,  Atlanta,  and  Rich- 


130  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

mond.  Neither  solution  was  undertaken 
promptly;  instead,  the  armies  were  scattered 
to  hold  the  places  and  reconstruct  the  rail 
ways  that  had  fallen  into  Union  hands.  Be 
fore  a  man  of  Halleck's  deliberateness  could 
have  begun  anew,  his  promotion  because  of 
the  deeds  of  his  subordinates  removed  him  to 
another  sphere  of  action,  and  left  the  west 
ern  control  divided.  Grant  succeeded  to  the 
armies  west  of  the  middle  of  Tennessee, 
while  Buell  retained  his  command  of  those 
east  of  this  point,  his  old  Army  of  the  Ohio. 
But  the  removal  of  Halleck  and  the  division 
of  the  forces  were  not  without  their  compen 
sations,  since  they  left  the  field  commanders 
in  command,  and  placed  Halleck  where  his 
meddling  could  do  less  harm.  Grant,  en 
trusted  with  the  armies  of  the  Mississippi  and 
the  Tennessee,  was  somewhat  more  successful 
than  Buell  in  the  disposition  of  his  troops. 

Ulysses  S.  Grant,  who  now  gained  his 
first  independent  command,  with  no  superior 
but  the  general-in-chief  at  Washington,  had 
been  the  subject  of  distrustful  inquiry  ever 
since  he  became  a  colonel  of  Illinois  volun 
teers,  and  remains  to-day  something  of  an 
enigma.  "At  the  age  of  thirty-nine,  Grant 
was  an  obscure  failure  in  a  provincial  town," 
writes  the  briefest  and  most  brilliant  of  his 
biographers.  He  was  born  in  Ohio,  bred  as  a 
farmer's  boy,  and  destined  for  the  trade  of 
tanner,  which  he  refused.  Unable  to  pro 
vide  him  with  a  different  trade,  his  father 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY      131 

procured  for  him  a  political  appointment  to 
West  Point,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1843, 
somewhat  below  the  middle  of  his  class. 
In  the  Mexican  War  he  was  promoted  for 
gallantry,  and  became  a  captain  ten  years 
after  graduation.  The  next  year,  1854,  he 
threw  up  his  commission  under  a  cloud  whose 
shadow  has  never  left  him.  He  drank  too 
much,  in  a  day  when  strong  drinking  was 
not  generally  a  disqualification  for  office, 
and  was  in  danger  of  dismissal  from  the 
service.  The  next  seven  years  of  his  life 
were  sad  and  discouraging.  He  drifted  from 
place  to  place,  having  none  of  the  business 
ability  commonly  called  practical.  At  no 
time  did  he  earn  even  a  fair  livelihood,  or 
provide  for  his  family  more  than  a  meagre 
sustenance.  Slight  of  frame,  silent  to  a 
fault,  incurably  simple  in  kind  and  habit, 
and  driven  from  his  profession  by  his  own 
weakness,  none  could  have  anticipated  a 
career  for  him  in  1860.  Lee  and  McClellan, 
of  social  standing  and  military  brilliance, 
were  marked  men  before  the  war  began. 
Grant  was  distrusted,  down  and  out.  He 
did  not  overvalue  himself,  and  when  he 
volunteered  his  services,  first  to  the  adjutant- 
general  at  Washington,  then  to  McClellan 
at  Cincinnati,  he  thought  of  no  greater  re 
sponsibility  than  that  of  colonel.  Ignored 
in  his  applications,  he  took  what  came  to 
him  without  complaint,  and  entered  a  volun 
teer  regiment  in  his  adopted  state. 


132  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Slowly  but  inevitably  he  rose.  Under 
stress  he  produced  a  will  that  his  native 
indolence  disguised.  Well-known,  and  to  his 
own  detriment,  by  his  superiors,  no  promo 
tion  came  to  him  unearned.  Halleck  gave 
him  as  little  rope  as  he  could.  McClellan 
had  no  confidence  in  him.  After  Fort  Don- 
elson,  he  was  relieved  from  command  on 
scanty  pretext  which  Halleck  had  not  enough 
candor  to  admit  when  he  restored  him,  After 
Shiloh,  he  was  again  superseded  until  Hal 
leck  was  transferred  to  Washington.  Yet 
he  compelled  promotion.  The  rumors  of 
his  past  bad  habits  handicapped  him  more 
and  more  as  he  rose.  There  is  no  evidence 
that,  during  the  war,  drink  at  any  time  inter 
fered  with  the  performance  of  his  duties.  If 
it  ever  did,  the  loyalty  that  he  inspired  in  all 
those  who  approached  his  person  has  led 
them  to  conspire  to  keep  it  secret.  "I  can't 
spare  this  man:  he  fights,"  said  Lincoln 
when  he  thought  of  McClellan,  and  the  Pen 
insula,  and  the  days  after  Antietam.  When 
the  virtuous  and  temperate  approached,  urg 
ing  him  to  dismiss  such  a  bad  example  from 
command,  he  turned  them  off  with  his  fa 
mous  rejoinder:  "I  wish  I  knew  what 
brand  of  whisky  he  drinks.  I  would  send 
a  barrel  to  all  my  other  generals." 

The  bad  reputation  under  which  Grant 
suffered  for  another  year,  after  the  battle  of 
Shiloh,  was  probably  his  military  salvation. 
It  steadied  him,  and  kept  from  his  ear  the 


1862:  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY       133 

vicious  adultation  that  destroyed  many  of  his 
colleagues.  Tied  to  his  task,  within  narrow 
limits,  he  learned  his  trade  and  improved 
his  skill  before  he  convinced  Lincoln  and  the 
nation  that  in  his  simple  person  was  the  brain 
for  which  both  had  steadfastly  searched. 

After  the  occupation  of  Corinth,  the  mili 
tary  movements  west  of  the  Mississippi,  ex 
cept  as  they  were  involved  in  the  Vicksburg 
campaigns  of  1863,  ceased  to  be  an  important 
part  of  the  main  strategy  of  the  war.  Never 
had  they  been  decisive,  but  all  along  the 
frontier,  from  Santa  Fe  to  St.  Paul,  there 
were  episodes,  locally  interesting  and  more 
or  less  connected  with  the  war. 

On  the  extreme  border  of  Texas,  the  mining 
regions  and  the  old  communities  along  the 
Rio  Grande  necessitated  a  campaign  in  1861 
and  1862.  Confederate  forces  actually  pos 
sessed  themselves  of  New  Mexico  and  part 
of  Arizona,  only  to  be  driven  out  by  a  com 
bined  attack  from  Colorado  and  California. 
In  Colorado  territory,  an  enthusiastic  gov 
ernor,  Gilpin  by  name,  believed  he  saw  a 
conspiracy  to  take  the  Pike's  Peak  camps 
over  the  Confederacy.  With  great  vigor 
he  enlisted  the  young  prospectors  of  the 
territory  into  volunteer  regiments,  which 
certainly  saved  it  from  whatever  danger 
threatened  it.  Farther  north,  the  new  state 
of  Minnesota  was  afflicted  towards  the  end 
of  the  year  with  a  serious  Indian  uprising. 

The  Sioux  of  the  Minnesota  Valley,  above 


134  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

St.  Paul,  had  been  accumulating  grievances 
against  the  United  States  for  more  than  ten 
years  before  the  war  began.  A  casual  fron 
tier  row  in  August,  1861,  developed  into  a  gen 
eral  attack  that  drove  the  settlers  from  the 
valley  in  wild  distress.  Nearly  a  thousand 
were  slain;  others  were  captured;  and  the 
occasion  called  for  greater  strength  than 
Minnesota  possessed.  Her  militia  was  aug 
mented,  and  Pope,  relieved  of  the  Army  of 
Virginia  after  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run, 
was  sent  to  restore  confidence  on  the  north 
west  border. 

In  Missouri,  Arkansas,  and  Kansas,  the 
fighting  was  more  orderly,  but  had  little 
more  permanent  consequence  than  that  on 
the  outlying  frontiers  of  Minnesota  or  New 
Mexico.  In  these  three  states  the  sentiment 
of  the  population  had  run  high  through  the 
fifties  when  the  fight  over  slavery  was  before 
Congress.  When  war  came,  many  entered 
each  army,  while  the  least  reputable  of  either 
side  formed  guerrilla  bands  that  plundered 
and  murdered  at  pleasure.  Quantrill  is  the 
most  notorious  of  these  raiders.  Price,  in 
his  attack  upon  Missouri,  and  Banks,  in  the 
Red  River  campaign  of  1864,  conducted 
the  most  notable  of  the  formal  campaigns. 
But  none  of  these  affected  the  general  out 
come.  After  one  more  campaign  under  Grant, 
the  Mississippi  became  a  Union  river,  and 
Confederate  operations  in  the  trans-Missis 
sippi  ceased  to  be  important. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

THE  occupation  of  Corinth,  Mississippi, 
which  ought  to  have  occurred  immediately 
after  Shiloh,  and  probably  would  have  if 
Halleck  had  not  intervened  with  theory  and 
authority,  opened  up  two  courses  for  con 
sideration.  Neither  Vicksburg  nor  Chatta 
nooga  was  beyond  the  reach  of  a  vigorous 
general,  had  he  acted  at  once,  taking  ad 
vantage  of  the  confusion  in  the  Confeder 
ate  ranks  caused  by  the  repulse  of  April  and 
the  death  of  Albert  Sidney  Johnston.  But 
first  came  a  cautious  tactician,  and  then  re 
organization  of  command,  while  the  enemy 
profited  by  the  respite  and  fortified  both 
places.  It  was  twenty  months  before  the 
advantage  gained  at  Shiloh  was  harvested. 

In  the  reorganization  of  the  Confederate 
army,  during  the  weeks  of  Union  inaction, 
Braxton  Bragg  became  commander  in  the 
West,  where  Johnston  had  been,  and  con 
trolled  the  whole  Confederate  line  from 
Atlanta  to  Vicksburg.  As  June  and  July 
advanced  it  became  clear  that  if  any  attack 
upon  him  were  to  come,  it  would  be  from 

135 


136  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Buell,  whose  army  Halleck  had  started  to 
wards  Chattanooga.  Accordingly  he  set  out 
to  control  that  place,  where  Johnston  had 
collected  large  amounts  of  army  stores,  and 
where  the  highways  opened  into  the  heart 
of  the  Confederacy.  In  August,  he  appeared 
in  person  on  the  scene,  with  more  than 
half  his  total  force,  and  had  closed  all  the 
approaches  before  Buell,  who  had  started 
before  him,  had  reached  his  destination.  In 
stead  of  seizing  Chattanooga  as  the  result 
of  Shiloh,  Buell  found  himself  on  the  defen 
sive  in  August.  His  enemy,  encouraged,  not 
only  held  his  own  in  eastern  Tennessee,  but 
contemplated  taking  the  initiative. 

September  and  October,  1862,  were  months 
of  Confederate  aggression.  Lee's  first  in 
vasion  of  the  North  was  barely  checked  at 
Antietam  on  September  17.  Bragg  led  an 
attack  on  Buell  in  the  same  month,  while, 
at  the  left  of  his  line,  Van  Dorn  created  a 
demonstration  to  hold  Grant  in  the  vicinity 
of  Corinth.  The  motives  inspiring  Bragg's 
attack  were  similar  to  those  of  Lee.  Eastern 
Tennessee  was  nearly  as  tepid  towards  seces 
sion  as  western  Virginia  had  been,  and  Ken 
tucky  was  immovable  thus  far;  yet  the 
enthusiasts  had  not  abandoned  the  hope  of 
their  aid  or  the  illusion  that  only  Union 
oppression  prevented  it.  Bragg  began  his 
campaign  in  the  end  of  August,  trying  to 
fire  the  lukewarm  heart  by  a  proclamation: 
"It  is  for  you  to  decide  whether  our  broth- 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  137 

ers  and  sisters  of  Tennessee  and  Kentucky 
shall  remain  bondmen  and  bondwomen  to 
the  abolition  tyrant,  or  be  restored  to  the 
freedom  inherited  from  their  fathers."  His 
raiders,  Morgan  and  Forrest,  were  already 
showing  the  Confederate  uniform  in  fields 
where  the  northern  invader  was  a  more  fa 
miliar  object. 

Bragg  was  not  certain  as  to  his  ultimate 
goal,  Nashville,  to  the  northwest,  or  Louis 
ville,  further  away  but  due  north.  He  chose 
the  latter,  finally,  since  Buell  was  concen 
trating  at  Murfreesboro,  between  him  and 
the  former,  and  plunged  across  Tennessee 
into  Kentucky.  It  would  have  been  sounder 
strategy  to  take  Nashville  first,  and  use  it 
as  a  base  for  the  country  further  north,  but 
Bragg' s  march  was  political  as  well  as  mili 
tary,  and  was  intended  to  show  that  the 
Union  lines  were  not  immune  from  inva 
sion.  Had  Halleck  refrained  from  weaken 
ing  Buell's  command,  the  Confederate  army 
ought  to  have  been  caught  and  destroyed.  As 
it  was,  Buell  raced  the  Confederate  army  to 
Louisville,  arrived  there  first,  and  on  October 
8,  1862,  fought  a  battle  at  Perryville,  Ken 
tucky,  which  checked  the  advance  of  Bragg, 
and  started  him  on  a  retreat  to  Chattanooga. 
Though  he  had  held  the  invader,  Buell  had 
lost  the  confidence  of  Halleck,  and  was  forced 
at  the  end  of  October  to  transfer  his  command 
to  Rosecrans,  under  whom  it  was  named  the 
Army  of  the  Cumberland.  If  Perryville  had 


138  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

done  nothing  more  than  give  his  chance  to 
a  brigadier  named  Sheridan,  with  eight  raw 
regiments  out  of  twelve,  it  would  have  been 
worth  while. 

Confederate  aggression  from  Chattanooga 
continued  during  the  fall  of  1862.  Bragg 
fell  back  on  his  base,  re-fitted,  and  started 
for  Nashville,  whither  he  ought  to  have  gone 
originally.  He  got  as  far  as  Murfreesboro, 
in  front  of  which  town  Rosecrans  attacked 
him  on  the  last  day  of  the  year.  After  three 
days'  fighting  at  Stone's  River,  as  this  engage 
ment  is  called,  Bragg  was  so  demoralized 
that  his  general  officers  urged  him  to  retreat 
to  save  the  army.  He  fell  back  at  once  to 
the  hills  around  Chattanooga,  while  Rose 
crans  occupied  Murfreesboro  and  both  went 
into  quarters  for  more  than  half  a  year. 

After  the  departure  of  Halleck,  Grant  had 
remained  at  Corinth  with  a  widely  scattered 
army,  over  which  his  command  was  only  by 
inference  until  October.  Halleck  left  him 
no  plan,  and  apparently  had  no  use  for  him 
except  as  he  held  on  to  Corinth  and  was 
ready  to  re-enforce  Buell  on  demand.  The 
administration  used  the  time  to  get  cotton 
out  of  the  South  for  northern  mills,  and  to 
permit  a  licensed  trade  with  the  enemy,  ad 
vantageous  to  the  latter  and  demoralizing 
to  the  discipline  as  well  as  to  the  private 
honesty  of  the  Union  force.  When  Bragg 
started  on  his  Kentucky  raid,  he  left  Van 
Dorn,  with  Price's  army  from  Missouri,  to 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  129 

hold  Grant  from  sending  help  to  Buell.  In 
September  Grant  was  thrown  upon  the  defen 
sive;  directing  an  engagement  at  luka,  on 
the  19th,  he  fought  again,  two  weeks  later, 
at  Corinth,  with  the  result  that  his  position 
was  secured  from  further  attack.  On  Octo 
ber  25  he  was  placed  formally  in  command 
of  the  department  of  the  Tennessee,  and  per 
mitted  to  take  the  initiative  against  Vicks- 
burg  that  he  desired.  \s 

For  ten  months  after  October,  1862,  Grant 
was  on  trial,  and  knew  it.  His  enemies,  who 
were  more  fluent  and  more  plausible  than 
himself,  had  the  ear  of  the  secretary  of  war 
and  the  general-in-chief.  Army  contractors, 
whose  peculations  he  exposed,  cotton  brokers, 
whose  pernicious  influence  upon  morale  he 
attacked,  temperance  advocates  who  thought 
him  dissipated,  co-operated  to  place  him 
under  suspicion  and  keep  him  there.  Early 
in  1863,  Charles  A.  Dana,  a  journalist  who 
later  was  made  assistant  secretary  of  war, 
was  inflicted  upon  him  as  a  member  of  his 
official  family,  to  watch  his  conduct  and 
keep  the  administration  informed.  Grant 
brought  upon  himself  much  of  this.  He  was 
a  wretched  correspondent,  and  his  military 
reports  were  brief  and  general.  He  never 
had  a  better  place  for  his  papers  than  his 
coat  pocket  (resembling  in  this  the  admin 
istrative  technique  of  Lincoln,  whose  tall 
hat  was  a  well-known  receptacle  for  memo 
randa),  and  the  quiet  persistence  with  which 


140  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

he  followed  up  his  own  counsels  often  left 
the  administration  in  doubt  as  to  his  real 
intent.  He  bore  with  Dana,  with  a  modesty 
unusual  in  major-generals,  and  won  him 
for  a  friend. 

Vicksburg,  Grant's  first  goal,  would  have 
been  inconvenient  in  approach,  even  if  it 
had  not  been  fortified  in  long  anticipation 
of  attack.  Set  on  the  Mississippi,  just  below 
the  Yazoo  Valley  and  its  marsh  lands  which 
protected  it  on  the  north,  it  was  perched 
at  the  northern  extremity  of  a  long  range 
of  high  bluffs.  These  rose  directly  from  the 
water's  edge,  making  the  town  almost  in 
accessible  from  the  west.  The  guns  of  its 
forts  commanded  long  reaches  of  the  river, 
above  and  below,  making  an  assault  impos 
sible.  Only  on  the  east  and  southeast  were 
dry  approaches  available,  and  these  were 
heavily  entrenched.  Against  these  Grant 
started  in  the  early  winter,  with  Memphis 
as  his  base  and  Holly  Springs  as  his  supply 
station. 

It  was  to  be  a  joint  attack  on  Vicksburg, 
like  that  of  the  early  spring  on  forts  Henry 
and  Donelson.  Sherman  was  to  drop  down 
the  river  from  Memphis,  convoyed  by  the 
fleet,  and  try  the  fortifications  by  the  water 
route.  Grant,  meanwhile,  was  to  march 
overland  against  the  rear,  to  drive  the  de 
fending  army  of  Pemberton  back  upon  his 
entrenchments.  Neither  operation  was  a 
success;  Grant  failed  to  get  near  the  city  be- 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  141 

cause  of  a  successful  raid  that  destroyed  his 
stores  at  Holly  Springs,  while  Sherman  was 
turned  back  after  a  vain  assault.  The  winter 
of  1862-1863  was  passed  in  devising  ways 
and  means,  in  digging  canals  through  the 
swamps  and  inventing  schemes  for  getting 
round  the  batteries.  The  spring  of  1863 
was  well  advanced  before  Grant  reached  his 
plan  of  action. 

With  his  army  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Mississippi  opposite  Vicksburg,  where  he 
had  placed  it  after  the  failure  of  his  first 
attack,  Grant  came  to  the  conviction  that 
capture  from  the  river  side  was  out  of  the 
question.  Only  from  the  south  or  south 
east  was  there  any  chance  of  success,  but 
to  get  to  Jackson,  Mississippi,  the  natural 
centre  for  an  attack  from  this  direction, 
there  were  but  two  methods.  He  might  go 
back  to  Memphis,  and  march  south  and 
inland  from  the  river,  with  a  good  base  at 
his  rear,  and  hope  for  better  things  than  in 
December,  when  the  cowardice  of  an  officer 
lost  him  Holly  Springs.  Such  procedure 
was  sound  according  to  military  principles, 
but  would  be  a  confession  that  the  removal 
of  the  army  to  the  right  bank  was  a  mistake. 
Or  he  might  go  down  the  river,  running  the 
batteries  of  Vicksburg  with  whatever  risk  it 
entailed,  find  a  landing  somewhere  below, 
and  march  up  upon  the  rear.  Most  of  his 
advisers  feared  the  rifled  guns  of  Vicksburg, 
and  a  piece  of  comic  opera  engineered  by 


142  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Porter,  of  the  fleet,  showed  how  real  that 
danger  was.  One  dark  night  the  Confed 
erate  sentinels  of  Vicksburg  saw  a  monitor 
coming  down  the  stream  and  gave  the  alarm. 
No  one  could  see  that  she  was  only  a  scow, 
with  pork-barrel  funnels  and  dummy  guns. 
The  defenders  opened  a  furious  fire  that 
proved  the  vigilance  of  their  watch,  and 
even  blew  up  one  of  their  iron-clad  gunboats 
to  avoid  capture.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  risk, 
Grant  determined  to  try  this  course. 

Sending  Sherman  up  the  river  to  create 
a  diversion  on  the  Confederate  right,  Grant 
put  his  army  on  transports, — river  steamers 
of  all  sorts,  manned  mostly  by  volunteers 
from  the  ranks, — and,  with  the  fleet  as  con 
voy,  ran  the  batteries  in  April,  through  a  bom 
bardment  that  was  more  spectacular  than 
dangerous.  Until  this  moment,  Pember- 
ton,  the  favorite  of  Davis  who  commanded 
at  Vicksburg,  had  been  in  the  dark  as  to  the 
Union  intention.  Now  the  plan  was  clear. 
Re-enforcements  were  called  for,  and  the 
Confederate  left  was  pr.epared  to  drive  the 
invader  back  into  the  swamps.  "Joe"  John 
ston,  with  an  army  in  eastern  Mississippi, 
tried  to  help.  On  the  last  day  of  April, 
Grant  put  his  army  back  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  Mississippi,  at  Bruinsburg,  and  began 
his  march  inland  and  to  the  north. 

In  most  military  operations,  a  base  is  re 
garded  as  essential,  but  Grant  was  getting 
further  and  further  away  from  his.  He 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  143 

felt  the  nervousness  in  Washington,  that 
was  likely  to  stop  the  course  he  had  in  mind, 
and  realized  that  only  the  loyalty  of  his 
generals  kept  them  active  in  a  manoeuvre 
which  they  doubted.  They  felt  none  of  the 
relief  that  he  experienced  at  getting  on  dry 
land,  even  though  Vicksburg  was  between 
him  and  his  supplies.  He  needed  none  of 
these.  He  put  five  days'  cooked  rations  in 
his  haversacks,  abandoned  his  trunks  and 
tents,  and  with  his  own  personal  baggage 
consisting  of  "a  brier- wood  pipe,  a  pouch  of 
tobacco,  and  a  toothbrush,"  on  a  borrowed 
horse,  he  cheerfully  left  what  little  base  he 
had.  He  wired  his  intentions  to  Halleck  at 
the  last  minute,  and  then  abandoned  his 
communications  before  that  cautious  strate 
gist  could  countermand  his  movements.  To 
one  who  asked  where  his  headquarters  would 
be,  he  is  said  to  have  replied,  "Ask  Peni- 
berton."  "No  formalities,"  he  later  wrote, 
"were  to  retard  our  progress  until  a  posi 
tion  was  secured  when  the  time  could  be 
spared  to  observe  them." 

For  ten  days  after  May  7,  1863,  Grant 
was  busy  in  places  unknown  to  the  war 
department.  Repeated  engagements  met 
him  on  all  sides.  His  five  days'  rations  were 
supplemented  by  the  forage  and  the  bacon 
of  the  countryside.  His  wagon  trains  were 
recruited  from  the  farm  wagons  and  the 
family  coaches  of  the  Yazoo  delta.  Pember- 
ton,  in  front  of  his  left,  and  Johnston,  to  his 


144  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

right,  were  split  apart.  Jackson  was  taken 
from  the  latter  on  May  14,  and  all  hope  of 
joining  the  two  Confederate  armies  was  de 
stroyed.  By  May  19,  Pemberton  was  locked 
up  within  the  city  of  Vicksburg,  while  Grant 
completely  invested  its  fortifications,  with 
his  right  wing  resting  on  the  Mississippi 
above  and  his  left  wing  on  the  Mississippi 
below  the  town.  Assaults  failing,  the  Union 
army  settled  down  to  formal  siege.  Pem- 
berton's  ability  has  always  been  doubted; 
his  loyalty  was  questioned  at  the  time  of 
the  investment,  for  he  was  northern  born. 
Tradition  gives  his  reply  to  his  accusers: 
"When  the  last  pound  of  beef,  bacon,  and 
flour;  the  last  grain  of  corn;  the  last  cow, 
and  hog,  and  horse,  and  dog  shall  have  been 
consumed,  and  the  last  man  shall  have 
perished  in  the  trenches,  then,  and  only 
then,  will  I  sell  Vicksburg." 

The  siege  of  Vicksburg  was  so  uncom 
fortable  to  the  besieged  that  they  have 
remembered  it  with  pride  and  satisfaction 
ever  since.  Their  food  gave  out  and  disease 
came  in.  Men  lived  in  caves  and  cellars  to 
avoid  Grant's  bombs.  Ink  and  vivacity 
remained  to  the  city's  press,  but  paper  on 
which  to  use  them  disappeared.  Along  the 
lines  of  the  opposing  pickets  there  was  much 
fraternizing  among  "Yanks"  and  "Johnny 
Rebs,"  with  mutual  exchanges  of  souvenirs, 
tobacco,  and  Confederate  notes.  Individuals 
in  the  ranks  showed  no  personal  hostility 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  145 

to  their  opponents,  as  individuals.  By  the 
end  of  June,  Pemberton  was  in  sight  of  the 
last  of  his  food,  and  offered  armistice,  only 
to  meet  the  same  reply  that  Buckner  had 
got  at  Donelson.  On  July  4  the  whole  Con 
federate  force  of  30,000  surrendered  to  Grant 
and  were  placed  upon  parole,  and  the  Mis- 
sissipp^  was  free  from  Confederate  control 
from  Cairo  to  the  sea.1  In  the  enthusiasm 
that  spread  over  the  North  as  the  meaning 
of  the  surrender  was  understood,  Lincoln 
wrote  to  Grant  his  thanks,  described  his 
former  doubts,  and  now  wished  "to  make  the 
personal  acknowledgement  that  you  were 
right  and  I  was  wrong."  Halleck,  aroused 
from  his  suspicions  by  the  accomplished 
fact,  wrote,  "You  and  your  army  have  well 
deserved  the  gratitude  of  your  country,  and 
it  will  be  the  boast  of  your  children,  that 
their  fathers  were  the  heroic  army  which 
reopened  the  Mississippi  River."  "Well 
aware  of  the  vanity  of  our  foe,"  wrote  Pem 
berton  in  his  report,  trying  to  explain  his 
course  and  its  disaster,  "I  knew  that  they 
would  attach  vast  importance  to  the  en 
trance  on  the  4th  of  July  into  the  stronghold 
of  the  great  river,  and  that,  to  gratify  their 
national  vanity,  they  would  yield  then  what 
could  not  be  extorted  from  them  at  any  other 
time." 

For  six  months  in  1863,  while  Grant  was 

1  The  statement  is  usually  made  this  way,  although  a  minor 
place,  Port  Hudson,  held  out  five  days  longer. 


146  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

fighting  along  the  Mississippi,  Rosecrans  sat 
in  eastern  Tennessee,  confronting  Bragg, 
and  doing  nothing.  Grant  prodded  him, 
and  Halleck  did  the  same,  without  driving 
him  from  his  conviction  that  it  was  a  bad 
business  to  fight  two  decisive  battles  at  one 
time.  He  at  least  understood  the  importance 
of  Vicksburg  and  Chattanooga,  which  were 
the  keypoints  to  the  Confederate  integrity. 
Toward  the  end  of  June,  with  a  skill  and  ease 
that  showed  it  was  not  incompetence  that 
held  him  back,  Rosecrans  moved  his  Army 
of  the  Cumberland,  and  speedily  locked  up 
Bragg  in  Chattanooga,  under  siege,  and 
occupied  Knoxville  besides.  From  August 
20  to  September  20  he  was  engaged  in  getting 
the  enemy  out  of  Chattanooga. 

All  the  other  Union  armies  were  resting 
during  Rosecrans'  campaign,  which  termi 
nated  in  the  two  days'  battle  of  Chicka- 
mauga,  on  September  19  and  20,  1863. 
President  Davis  realized  the  full  significance 
of  the  attack,  and  sent  to  Bragg  a  division 
here,  and  another  there,  until  at  the  final 
test  Bragg  could  bring  to  the  battle  line 
66,000  troops.  They  represented  the  whole 
circle  of  the  Confederacy,  coming  from  Rich 
mond,  Charleston,  Mobile,  and  Vicksburg, 
and  including  among  their  commanders 
Longstreet,  Polk,  and  Buckner. 

The  last  of  these,  Buckner,  was  a  Kentucky 
militiaman,  who  had  risen  rapidly  to  com 
mand,  and  had  been  left  by  his  superiors  to 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  147 

bear  the  burden  of  the  surrender  of  Fort 
Donelson.  In  later  life,  his  political  activities 
finally  placed  him  on  the  same  ticket  with 
one  of  his  Union  opponents,  John  M.  Palmer, 
in  a  presidential  campaign.  Longs treet  had 
come  west,  at  his  own  request,  to  re-enforce 
Bragg,  after  fighting  through  all  the  great 
engagements  in  Virginia.  The  tempera 
mental  barrier  between  him  and  his  com 
mander  weakened  the  value  of  his  aid.  Polk 
knew  the  lower  Mississippi  Valley  perhaps 
better  than  any  of  his  colleagues.  After 
graduating  at  West  Point,  in  1827,  he  had 
gone  into  the  church,  and  had  been  the  first 
Episcopal  missionary  bishop  of  the  South 
west.  No  pioneer  roughness  was  too  crude 
for  him,  and  when  episcopal  translation  put 
him  at  the  head  of  the  diocese  of  Louisiana, 
he  continued  his  travel  up  and  down  the 
valley,  that  made  his  name  and  figure  famil 
iar  to  most  of  its  inhabitants.  Against  his 
preferences  he  buckled  the  sword  over  the 
gown  at  the  request  of  Davis,  kept  it  there 
under  the  same  request,  when  he  thought 
the  assignment  of  Albert  Sidney  Johnston 
to  the  western  armies  ought  to  have  relieved 
him,  and  continued  to  his  death  in  the  service 
of  the  cause  of  constitutional  liberty  as  he 
saw  it. 

By  the  middle  of  September,  Bragg  had 
received  and  placed  his  men,  preparing  to 
offer  a  general  battle.  He  was  on  the  verge 
of  giving  the  order  for  attack,  when  Rose- 


148  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

crans,  with  Thomas  on  his  left,  along  the 
Chickamauga  River,  began  a  fight  on  the 
morning  of  the  19th.  During  the  first  day, 
Rosecrans  had  what  advantage  there  was, 
as  he  had  had  during  the  whole  of  the 
manoeuvre  thus  far.  The  exigencies  of  the 
battle  arrangement  had  led  both  armies 
away  from  their  objective,  but  as  the  battle 
came,  Rosecrans  was  between  Bragg  and 
Chattanooga.  On  the  20th  the  fight  was 
resumed,  to  the  confusion  of  the  Union 
forces.  Rosecrans  left  the  field,  and  hurried 
into  Chattanooga  to  prepare  to  receive  his 
retreating  army;  only  the  stubbornness  of 
Thomas  saved  the  day  from  total  destruc 
tion.  He  held  the  road  while  the  other  divi 
sions  escaped  and  Bragg  used  up  his  strength 
in  repeated  but  ineffective  assaults.  By 
September  22,  Chattanooga  was  a  Union 
city  as  the  result  of  an  engagement,  which  is 
generally  regarded  as  a  Union  defeat.  Bragg 
was  now  the  besieger  and  settled  down  to 
starve  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland  out  of 
its  position.  The  campaign  had  accomplished 
its  purpose,  but  its  last  three  days  had  de 
stroyed  the  fame  of  Rosecrans.  When  Grant 
accepted  the  command  of  all  the  armies  of 
the  Westj  a  few  days  later,  he  took  this 
army  from  its  leader,  and  gave  it  to  Thomas, 
the  "rock  of  Chickamauga." 

The  survivors  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumber 
land  maintain  that  Chickamauga  was  a 
Union  victory  in  that  it  gained  for  Rosecrans 


ULYSSES  S.   GRANT  149 

his  objective.  The  country  thought  differ 
ently,  and  turned  to  the  one  consistent  victor 
in  the  West.  Grant  had  been  inspecting 
posts  in  his  command  since  Vicksburg  had 
destroyed  the  last  resistance  of  the  enemy. 
His  request  for  orders  to  take  Mobile  had 
been  denied.  He  was  sick  at  New  Orleans 
when  ordered  to  re-enforce  Rosecrans,  and 
was  not  well  when  ordered  by  the  secretary 
of  war  to  report  at  once  at  Cairo.  From 
Cairo  he  was  sent  to  Louisville,  and  was 
joined  on  the  way  by  Secretary  Stanton,  who 
had  come  out  to  offer  him  command  of  a  new 
military  division  of  the  Mississippi,  with 
subordinate  departments  of  the  Ohio,  the 
Cumberland,  and  the  Tennessee,  and  control 
of  nearly  all  the  forces  of  the  West.  On 
October  20  Grant  started  for  the  centre  of 
his  command,  having  telegraphed  Thomas 
to  hold  tight,  and  received  the  encouraging 
response,  "We  will  hold  the  town  till  we 
starve."  Starvation  was  not  far  away.  The 
Union  army  was  closely  watched  by  Bragg, 
upon  the  near-by  hills;  its  route  to  its  sup 
plies  at  Nashville  was  cut  off  by  the  enemy; 
its  horses  were  dying,  and  its  men  were  living 
on  "half  rations  of  hard  bread  and  beef  dried 
on  the  Jioof" 

On  the  afternoon  of  October  23  Grant 
arrived  at  Chattanooga,  "wet,  dirty,  and 
well;"  went  at  once  to  Thomas's  head 
quarters;  thrust  his  muddy  top  boots  into 
the  warmth  of  the  grate  fire;  lighted  a  fresh 


150  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

cigar;  and  took  command  of  the  invested 
army.  Before  he  went  to  bed  he  had  issued 
orders  for  the  opening  of  a  "cracker"  line 
through  which  food  and  ammunition  might 
come  more  safely,  and  when  he  rode  around 
the  lines  the  following  morning  it  was  evident 
to  all  that  the  command  had  changed.  Be 
fore  the  end  of  the  month  the  siege  was  raised, 
Bragg  had  divided  his  army  by  sending  Long- 
street  to  try  to  get  Knoxville,  and  Grant 
had  begun  to  consolidate  his  own  force  for 
the  aggressive.  Sherman  was  summoned 
from  Vicksburg  to  Chattanooga. 

With  the  arrival  of  Sherman  and  his  army 
corps,  there  were  brought  together,  for  the 
first  and  only  time  during  the  war,  four  men 
whose  names  are,  perhaps,  brightest  among 
those  who  fought  for  the  Union.  Grant, 
Sherman,  Thomas,  and  Sheridan  never  lost 
their  hold  on  public  confidence,  and  the 
affectionate  regard  of  the  people  for  them 
continued  increasingly  until  the  war  was  over. 
Other  generals  had  their  ups  and  downs: 
these  went  always  up.  Others  may  have 
been  as  skilful,  and  were  certainly  as  brave, 
but  none  were  more  successful,  and,  what  is 
still  more  important  as  military  reputations 
go,  none  were  so  consistently  lucky. 

Grant  had  gained  the  control  of  the  fight 
ing  in  the  West,  and  had  given  Sherman  his 
old  Army  of  the  Tennessee,  while  Thomas 
had  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland.  William 
Tecumseh  Sherman  began  his  "Memoirs" 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  151 

with  an  account  of  his  service  in  the  Third 
Artillery  at  Charleston,  under  Captain  Rob 
ert  Anderson,  in  1846.  Had  he  begun  them 
with  his  youth,  he  would  have  recorded  his 
birth  in  Ohio,  and  his  graduation  at  West 
Point  in  the  class  of  1840.  A  younger  brother, 
John,  who  remained  at  home,  was  senator 
from  Ohio  when  the  Civil  War  began,  while 
William  had  resigned  from  the  army  and 
become  superintendent  of  the  state  military 
academy  of  Louisiana.  In  March,  1861,  he 
journeyed  up  the  railway  through  Jackson, 
Mississippi,  to  Columbus,  Kentucky,  along 
which  he  was  to  do  so  much  laborious  fighting 
the  next  year,  and  was  in  St.  Louis,  as  was 
Grant,  when  Captain  Lyon  seized  the  arsenal 
and  saved  the  state.  He  had  no  doubt,  from 
the  first,  about  the  seriousness  of  the  war, 
and  damned  the  politicians.  When  Lincoln 
snubbed  him  at  the  White  House,  in  spite 
of  the  prestige  of  his  senatorial  brother,  he 
lost  his  temper.  "You  have  got  things  in  a 
hell  of  a  fix,  and  you  may  get  out  of  them  as 
best  you  can,"  he  said  to  John.  After  Bull 
Run,  in  which  he  participated  as  colonel 
commanding  a  brigade,  he  was  sent  west, 
where  his  rise  was  more  rapid  than  that  of 
most  of  the  West  Pointers.  After  Vicksburg, 
he  was  famous  and  knew  it,  but  his  relations 
to  Grant,  his  chief,  remained  intimate  and 
confidential.  Grant's  first  thought  on  receiv 
ing  his  promotion,  was  that  Sherman  should 
succeed  him  in  the  Army  of  the  Tennessee. 


152  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

"The  Army  of  the  Confederacy  is  the  South," 
wrote  William  to  John,  toward  the  end  of 
1863,  "and  they  still  hope  to  worry  us  out. 
The  moment  we  relax  they  gain  strength  and 
confidence.  We  must  hammer  away  and 
show  such  resistance,  such  bottom  that  even 
that  slender  hope  will  fail  them."  On  October 
27  he  received  his  orders  to  march  from 
Mississippi  into  eastern  Tennessee;  on  Nov 
ember  14  he  rode  into  Chattanooga. 

Major-General  George  H.  Thomas,  com 
manding  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland, 
graduated  in  Sherman's  class  at  West  Point, 
and  was  one  of  those  Virginians  who  stayed 
by  the  Union.  His  regiment,  the  Second 
Cavalry,  lost  by  resignation  all  its  officers 
outranking  him,  including  its  commander, 
Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  so  that  he  entered 
the  war,  a  colonel  through  seniority,  at  the 
age  of  forty -four.  In  August,  1861,  he  was 
detailed  for  service  in  Kentucky,  where  he 
worked  his  way  up  in  the  Army  of  the  Cum 
berland  until  at  Chickamauga  his  conduct 
was  distinguished  the  more  because  of  the 
uncertainty  of  that  of  Rosecrans.  He  passed 
on  his  army  corps  to  John  M.  Palmer,  one 
of  the  political  major-generals  from  Illinois, 
when  he  succeeded  Rosecrans.  Deliberate 
and  slow,  he  was  eminently  a  soldier.  Grant 
believed,  in  later  years,  that  Thomas  could 
not  have  conducted  Sherman's  aggressive 
campaigns,  but  that  "if  it  had  been  given  him 
to  hold  the  line  which  [Joe]  Johnston  tried  to 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  153 

hold,  neither  that  general,  nor  Sherman,  nor 
any  other  officer  could  have  done  it  better." 

Among  Thomas's  subordinate  command 
ers,  none  outclassed  Philip  H.  Sheridan,  an 
Irish-American  who  as  a  cavalry  leader  had 
no  superior  in  the  Civil  War,  and  for  whom 
the  war  ended  too  soon,  not  giving  him  a 
chance  to  prove  that  he  had  no  superior  of 
any  sort.  Like  the  others  of  this  group,  he 
was  a  West  Pointer,  but  of  a  later  generation, 
graduating  in  1852.  Before  the  battle  of 
Perryville,  at  which  Buell  checked  Bragg's 
invasion  of  Kentucky,  he  had  risen  from 
lieutenant  to  captain,  from  captain  to  colonel, 
and  to  brigadier-general.  After  Stone's 
River  his  distinguished  services  made  him  a 
major-general  of  volunteers,  while  after 
Grant's  campaign  at  Chattanooga  he  was 
taken  east  to  command  the  cavalry  division 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

In  addition  to  Sherman,  Thomas,  and 
Sheridan,  there  was  another  commander 
whose  arrival  at  Chattanooga  made  a  mate 
rial  increase  to  Grant's  strength.  Joseph 
Hooker,  with  two  army  corps,  was  shifted 
by  rail  from  the  army  of  the  Potomac  to  the 
Tennessee,  and  arrived  early  in  October  with 
no  wagon  trains,  but  with  an  experience 
gained  in  all  ranks  of  the  army  of  the  Poto 
mac,  from  brigadier-general  to  general-in- 
command.  The  transfer  of  his  corps  is  one 
of  the  many  cases  in  which  the  northern 
railways  formed  an  extra  arm  of  the  Union 


154  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

service.  The  failure  of  his  superiors  to  give 
him  wagons  and  animals  tied  him  to  Nash 
ville  and  deprived  Rosecrans  of  his  aid  for 
three  weeks,  while  Rosecrans' s  resulting  in 
activity  convinced  those  same  superiors  of 
his  incompetence. 

The  situation  confronting  Grant  at  Chat 
tanooga  required  strategy  quite  as  much  as 
fighting,  for  Bragg  was  so  entrenched  tfoat 
front  attacks  could  be  repelled  at  pleasure. 
His  army  lay  in  a  long  curve  on  the  moun 
tains  east  and  south  of  Chattanooga,  with 
his  right  on  Missionary  Ridge  and  his  left 
on  Lookout  Mountain.  Around  his  right 
ran  the  Chickamauga  River,  on  which  Rose 
crans  had  fought  him  in  September.  Chat 
tanooga  Creek  pierced  the  centre  of  his  line 
and  emptied  into  the  Tennessee  River  a  few 
miles  below  the  city. 

Facing  Bragg,  Grant  lined  up  Sherman  on 
his  left,  Thomas  in  his  centre,  and  Hooker 
on  his  right.  The  bulk  of  the  fighting,  as  he 
arranged  it,  was  intended  to  fall  on  Sherman, 
in  whose  leadership  he  had  the  greatest 
confidence.  Sherman  was  ordered  to  march 
secretly,  to  cross  the  Tennessee,  and  to  fall 
on  Bragg's  right  flank,  at  the  north  end  of 
Missionary  Ridge,  while  the  rest  of  the  army 
was  to  hold  Bragg's  left,  so  that  it  could  not 
re-enforce.  The  secret  movement  was  a 
success,  though  delayed  by  the  difficulty  of 
moving  heavy  trains  along  the  wretched 
mountain  paths.  To  conceal  Sherman's 


ULYSSES  S.   GR\^T  155 

movement,  Thomas,  on  September  23,  drew 
up  his  division  in  the  centre  of  the  line,  in 
readiness  to  storm  the  heights  before  him. 
It  was  planned  that  on  the  following  day  he 
should  make  an  advance.  Sherman,  mean 
while,  accomplished  his  crossing  on  the  23d, 
and  on  the  morning  of  the  24th,  when  he 
ought  to  have  sprung  his  assault,  found 
himself  misled  by  his  maps,  and  separated 
from  the  enemy  by  a  ravine  of  whose  exist 
ence  he  was  unaware.  The  reconnoissance 
of  Thomas,  by  this  accident,  deviated  from 
a  demonstration  into  a  battle.  Hooker,  on 
Thomas's  right,  with  a  mixed  army  of  10,000 
men  representing  the  three  armies  of  the 
Potomac,  the  Cumberland,  and  the  Mis 
sissippi,  was  in  front  of  the  heights  of  Look 
out  Mountain  when  the  fight  began  on  the 
24th.  All  day  he  worked  his  men  through 
the  fog,  up  the  side  of  Lookout  Mountain, 
until  at  night  Bragg's  left  was  so  crumpled 
up  and  brushed  away  that  Hooker  could 
prepare  to  pursue  his  retiring  regiments  on 
the  25th. 

The  value  of  Sherman's  manoeuvre  is 
still  debated  by  tacticians.  He  and  Grant 
believed  that  he  held  Bragg's  right,  and 
compelled  him  to  strengthen  it  from  the 
centre,  thus  weakening  the  Confederate 
ranks  on  Missionary  Ridge,  at  the  middle 
of  the  line.  Yet  the  Army  of  the  Cumber 
land,  which  faced  that  middle,  had  reasons 
to  believe  that  it  remained  unweakened  all 


156  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

through  the  24th.  On  the  afternoon  of  the 
25th,  Thomas  moved  his  army,  still  angry 
over  the  slights  cast  upon  it  after  Chicka- 
mauga,  against  the  entrenchments  at  the 
foot  of  Missionary  Ridge.  Above  him  were 
the  heights  whose  inaccessibility  had  induced 
Grant  to  try  to  outflank  the  enemy.  But 
once  the  advance  was  started  and  the  first 
rifle-pits  attained,  the  soldiers  of  the  Army 
of  the  Cumberland  took  charge  and  went  on 
up  the  hill.  Their  officers  went  with  them, 
but  that  was  all.  In  an  hour  they  had  dis 
possessed  Bragg's  centre,  captured  his  guns 
and  his  forts,  to  say  nothing  of  prisoners, 
left  nearly  4,000  of  their  own  men  killed  and 
wounded  on  the  hillside,  and  ended  an  en 
gagement  as  decisive  as  Vicksburg  had  been. 
Grant  had  brought  56,000  men  into  the 
fight,  against  44,000  Confederates. 

Both  armies  settled  down  for  the  winter 
shortly  after  Chattanooga.  Bragg  retreated 
into  Georgia,  where  he  was  soon  relieved  by 
"Joe"  Johnston,  whose  skill  in  delaying  the 
advance  of  an  army  was  not  surpassed  in 
any  of  his  colleagues.  He  fortified  himself 
at  Dalton  and  waited  for  attack.  The  army 
of  the  Cumberland  lay  at  Chattanooga  under 
Thomas.  Knoxville  was  relieved  by  various 
Union  forces,  while  Longstreet,  who  threat 
ened  it,  went  back  to  the  defence  of  Rich 
mond.  Sherman  resumed  his  minor  opera 
tions  in  Mississippi,  and  wintered  near 
Huntsville,  Alabama. 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  157 

When  the  spring  of  1864  opened,  Grant 
rose  in  rank  once  more,  for  in  the  eighteen 
months  since  Antietam  the  armies  in  eastern 
Virginia  had  continued  at  their  old  work  of 
attack  and  defence,  with  but  little  change 
in  their  relations.  One  commander  after 
another  had  been  tried  and  discarded  before 
Congress,  in  February,  1864,  revived  the 
office  of  lieutenant-general,  unused  since  the 
death  of  Washington,  and  in  which  the  Sen 
ate  promptly  confirmed  the  appointment  of 
General  Grant.  A  few  days  later  the  new 
general-in-chief  of  all  the  armies  came  quietly 
into  Washington,  stood  in  line  at  the  desk 
of  the  Willard  House  until  the  important 
clerk  had  time  to  read  on  the  register  his 
unassuming  "U.  S.  Grant  and  son,  Galena, 
111.,"  and  received  his  commission  from  the 
hand  of  Lincoln.  A  letter  from  Sherman 
followed  him  east  with  advice  that  is  worth 
recording:  "Come  out  west;  take  to  your 
self  the  whole  Mississippi  Valley;  let  us 
make  it  dead  sure,  and  I  tell  you  the  Atlantic 
slope  and  the  Pacific  shores  will  follow  its 
destiny  as  sure  as  the  limbs  of  a  tree  live  or 
die  with  the  main  trunk!  .  .  .  Here  lies 
the  seat  of  the  coming  empire;  and  from  the 
west,  when  our  task  is  done,  we  will  make 
short  work  of  Charleston  and  Richmond,  and 
the  impoverished  slope  of  the  Atlantic." 

Until  the  appointment  of  Grant,  Lincoln 
continued  to  feel  his  responsibility  as  con 
stitutional  commander-in-chief,  and  tried  to 


158  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

supplement  the  efforts  of  his  eastern  gen 
erals.  He  had  even  called  for  books  on 
the  art  of  war,  and  studied  them  in  the  min 
utes  between  his  political  engagements.  He 
brought  to  the  task  common  sense  beyond 
the  average,  but  his  biographers  generally 
admit  that  he  was  not  at  his  best  as  a  mili 
tary  adviser.  His  disposition  and  attitude, 
however,  were  exactly  what  ought  to  be 
aimed  at  by  the  political  leader  charged  with 
the  conduct  of  a  war.  Repeatedly  he  chose 
generals,  placed  full  confidence  in  them,  saw 
them  fail,  and  felt  forced  to  intervene  with 
his  amateur  strategy.  During  the  events  of 
1862  he  had  suffered  from  the  absence  of  the 
commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in 
the  field,  and  had  summoned  Halleck, — 
the  most  successful  man  he  could  see,  —  to 
reside  in  Washington  and  explain  or  advise 
as  the  case  might  need.  He  did  not  want 
ever  to  intervene,  but  knew  that  his  was  the 
responsibility  for  the  safety  of  the  Union. 
When  McClellan  rode  his  command  with 
too  high  a  hand,  Lincoln  only  said,  over 
looking  ostentatious  personal  slights,  "I 
will  hold  McClellan's  horse,  if  he  will  only 
bring  us  success."  When  he  learned  that 
Hooker  had  foolishly  said  that  the  country 
needed  a  dictator,  he  contented  himself  with 
replying:  "Only  those  generals  who  gain 
successes  can  set  up  dictators.  What  I  now 
ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and  I  will 
risk  the  dictatorship."  When  Grant  pre- 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT  159 

pared  his  orders  for  his  first  general  campaign 
in  1864,  the  President  wrote  him,  "The 
particulars  of  your  plan  I  neither  know,  nor 
seek  to  know."  For  once  Lincoln  found  no 
complaint  coming  from  headquarters;  Grant 
replied,  "Should  my  success  be  less  than 
I  desire  and  expect,  the  least  I  can  say  is, 
the  fault  is  not  with  you." 


CHAPTER  IX 

GETTYSBURG  AND   RECONSTRUCTION 

THE  three  successors  of  McClellan  made 
slight  progress  with  the  attack  upon  Rich 
mond  between  the  battle  of  Antietam  and 
the  arrival  of  Grant  in  Washington.  Burn- 
side,  Hooker,  and  Meade  fought  three  of 
the  bloodiest  battles  of  the  war;  at  Fred- 
ericksburg  the  Union  loss  was  nearly  11,000; 
at  Chancellorsville  it  was  over  11,000;  at 
Gettysburg  it  was  17,684.  The  Confeder 
ate  loss  to  offset  these  in  the  three  engage 
ments  was  38,000.  When  they  were  all  over, 
the  Union  armies  lay  entrenched  near  the 
Potomac,  while  Lee  continued  to  block  the 
road  to  Richmond. 

At  most  times  throughout  the  war  General 
Robert  E.  Lee  was  held  by  President  Davis 
to  that  defensive  fighting  that  he  thought 
most  wise.  The  invasion  of  Maryland  had 
been,  in  many  ways,  only  a  piece  of  aggressive 
defence,  in  order  to  compel  the  Union  leaders 
to  let  up  on  Richmond.  After  the  battle  of 
Antietam,  Lee  fell  back  into  Virginia  and 
waited  through  the  autumn  of  1862,  to  see 
what  McClellan  would  do  next.  When  Mc- 

160 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    161 

Clellan  was  replaced  by  Ambrose  E.  Burn- 
side,  on  November  7,  Lee  had  to  take  up 
anew  his  series  of  studies  of  the  personality 
and  tactics  of  Union  commanders.  Long- 
street  is  responsible  for  the  assertion  that 
Lee  regretted  to  part  with  McClellan,  "for 
we  always  understood  each  other  so  well.  I 
fear  they  may  continue  to  make  these  changes 
till  they  find  some  one  whom  I  don't  under 
stand."  Greater  confidence  permeated  the 
Confederate  ranks  after  the  successes  of  the 
year,  and  large  numbers  of  absentees  came 
back  into  the  army.  When  they  saw  that 
McClellan's  removal  was  due  to  his  unwilling 
ness  to  fight,  they  knew  that  his  successor 
would  try  to  fight  before  winter  set  in. 

The  strategy  of  Burnside's  campaign  was 
simple  and  almost  predetermined.  Of  the 
three  ways  of  getting  to  Richmond,  McClel 
lan  had  tried  two.  In  the  spring  he  had 
gone  to  the  Peninsula;  while  in  the  fall  he 
was  at  work  on  the  route  along  the  foothills  of 
the  Blue  Ridge,  —  the  Piedmont,  —  when  dis 
missed.  Neither  of  his  plans  could  be  taken 
up  again  without  somewhat  discrediting  the 
authorities  who  removed  him.  Accordingly, 
Burnside  proceeded  on  the  middle  route, 
moving  at  once  on  Fredericksburg,  and  hop 
ing  to  skirt  Lee's  right  flank  and  get  be 
tween  him  and  Richmond.  The  Richmond 
and  Potomac  railway  was  relied  on  as  a  car 
rier  of  Union  supplies.  On  November  17, 
the  advance  of  the  Union  army  reached  the 


162  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Rappahannock  River,  opposite  Fredericks- 
burg,  and  could,  and  would  have  occupied 
the  town  at  once,  had  not  Burnside  held 
back  for  a  pontoon  train  and  a  heavier  force. 
It  was  Lee's  first  desire  to  let  Burnside  cross 
the  Rappahannock  and  get  further  into  the 
Wilderness,  and  then  destroy  him  in  a  pitched 
battle;  but  Davis  intervened.  In  October, 
Gladstone  had  let  out  a  note  of  British 
sympathy  for  the  Confederacy,  which  made 
the  Richmond  leaders  hope  that  a  recogni 
tion  by  Great  Britain  might  follow  and  make 
the  danger  of  a  great  battle  unnecessary. 
Before  Burnside  got  his  army  ready  to  cross 
the  river,  Lee  was  waiting  for  him  along  the 
top  of  the  heights  behind  the  city,  with  a 
line  more  than  six  miles  long,  Longstreet  on 
the  left  and  "Stonewall"  Jackson  on  the 
right. 

On  December  13,  1862,  Burnside  began 
his  attack.  Lee  had  allowed  him  to  build 
his  bridges  and  cross  the  Rappahannock 
without  serious  interference.  Entrenched 
along  the  ridges,  he  was  content  to  wait  and 
fight  under  cover,  since  his  weaker  force  of 
72,000  was  to  oppose  106,000  Union  effec 
tives.  Nowhere  along  the  line  was  the 
attack  of  December  13  successful.  Toward 
the  close  of  the  day,  as  a  last  chance,  Burn- 
side  sent  column  after  column  up  the  hill, 
along  the  Orange  Plank  Road,  against  a 
stone  wall  at  the  foot  of  a  rising  known  as 
Marye's  Hill.  One  army  corps  lost  more 


GETTYSBURG  — RECONSTRUCTION    163 

than  a  quarter  of  its  men  in  the  vain  assault. 
Hooker's  division,  at  the  last,  kept  up  the 
fight  long  after  its  failure  was  plain  to  every 
one  but  Burnside.  On  December  14,  the 
army  lay,  winded,  around  Fredericksburg. 
The  next  day  it  crossed  the  Rappahannock 
again  and  returned  to  quarters.  The  snap 
was  gone  from  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
and  when  "Fighting  Joe"  Hooker  took  the 
reins  from  Burnside  his  rolls  showed  that 
84,000  men  who  ought  to  have  been  present 
had  quietly  melted  from  the  ranks.  Neither 
this  army  nor  Lee's  was  made  up  of  pro 
fessional  soldiers  yet.  The  morale  of  either 
broke  down  in  the  face  of  defeat.  Even  the 
victorious  Confederate  army  dwindled  in 
numbers,  and  Lee  had  to  make  repeated 
demands  for  re-enforcements.  Wiser  than 
many  of  the  other  Confederate  leaders,  he 
saw  the  logical  outcome,  unless  some  acci 
dent  should  intervene.  "We  should  not," 
he  wrote  in  the  spring  of  1863,  "conceal  from 
ourselves  that  our  resources  in  men  are  con 
stantly  diminishing,  and  the  disproportion 
in  this  respect  between  us  and  our  ene 
mies  ...  is  constantly  augmenting." 

The  Army  of  the  Potomac  wintered  after 
Fredericksburg  in  its  old  quarters  around 
Falmouth,  on  the  narrowest  neck  of  land 
between  the  Rappahannock  and  the  Potomac, 
about  fifty  miles  from  Washington.  Under 
Hooker,  the  spirits  of  the  men  revived  more 
than  those  of  its  officers,  for  the  latter,  though 


164  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

knowing  him  as  a  brave  fighter,  distrusted 
his  judgment  and  his  personal  character. 
By  April,  1863,  when  the  President  came 
down  to  camp  to  review  the  troops,  in  a  heavy 
snowstorm,  there  were  130,000  effectives 
present,  organized  in  seven  army  corps.  On 
April  12,  Hooker  began  to  shoe  his  horses 
and  clean  up  his  hospitals.  In  a  few  days 
more  he  was  marching  up  the  Rappahannock 
to  a  crossing  above  Fredericksburg,  near 
Chancellorsville,  where  on  the  last  day  of 
the  month  he  established  his  headquarters 
at  the  Chancellor  House.  Part  of  his  force 
he  had  thrown  across  the  river  below  Fred 
ericksburg,  so  that  Lee  lay  between  his 
divided  left  and  right  wings.  The  Confed 
erates  were  in  their  old  entrenchments  of 
December,  and  began  to  readjust  their  lines 
only  on  the  morning  of  May  1.  There  were 
perhaps  60,000  of  them.  Longstreet  had 
been  detached  from  the  army  for  service 
elsewhere,  leaving  Jackson  and  Lee  to  direct 
the  fighting.  By  the  night  of  the  1st,  these 
had  established  a  new  line,  touching  the 
Union  outposts,  and  here  the  soldiers  bivou 
acked  where  they  happened  to  be.  Lee  and 
Jackson  slept  together  on  a  heap  of  pine 
boughs.  The  next  morning  the  latter  set  off 
with  his  army  for  a  destination  unannounced, 
which  proved,  in  the  afternoon,  to  be 
Hooker's  right  flank,  which  he  reached  by 
an  inconspicuous  farm  road.  In  the  early 
evening  his  men  plunged  upon  the  surprised 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    165 

wing,  with  the  "rebel  yell."  The  victory 
which  they  gained  cost  a  high  price,  for 
Jackson  rode  into  his  own  line  of  fire  and  was 
torn  to  pieces  by  Confederate  bullets. 

Many  of  Hooker's  generals  believed  that 
the  battle  could  have  been  saved  on  May  3. 
The  division  of  the  Union  army  for  attack 
had  given  Lee  a  great  advantage;  but  he 
had  divided  his  own  force  for  defence,  and 
Hooker  had  abundant  fresh  troops  on  the 
3d,  who  might  have  destroyed  Jackson's 
flanking  party  on  his  right.  He  abandoned 
his  right,  however,  and  tried  to  take  the 
heights  of  Fredericksburg,  on  his  left,  al 
though  they  had  proved  impregnable  in 
Burnside's  fight.  An  assault  on  them  was 
finally  successful,  but  before  the  wing  which 
took  them  was  in  full  possession,  Hooker 
had  been  stunned  by  a  cannon  ball  and  had 
left  the  field.  His  orders  that  the  army  be 
withdrawn  terminated  the  aggressive  cam 
paign.  A  good  opportunity  had  been  lost 
by  mismanagement,  and  the  superior  general 
ship  of  Lee. 

The  government  was  in  a  quandary  when 
the  news  of  Lee's  victory  reached  Washing 
ton.  It  was  obvious  that  Hooker  could  not 
be  allowed  to  blunder  away  another  battle, 
yet  it  was  hard  to  agree  on  any  one  to  take 
his  place.  Nearly  every  general  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  who  had  distinguished  him 
self  had  been  tried  in  chief  command.  The 
embarrassment  was  increased  by  the  knowl- 


166  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

edge  that  many  of  Hooker's  subordinates, 
including  Couch,  who  had  taken  charge  on 
the  3d,  would  resign  if  he  were  not  removed. 
Before  a  decision  could  be  reached  Lee  added 
to  the  perplexity  by  breaking  camp,  and 
Hooker  surmised  that  he  was  heading  for 
the  Potomac.  The  surmise  was  correct, 
for  Lee  had  slipped  once  more  into  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  with  an  invasion  of 
Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  in  his  mind. 

Hooker  suggested  that  he  ought  to  "pitch 
into  his  rear,"  at  Fredericksburg,  again. 
But  Lincoln,  cautious  after  two  experiences 
with  the  hills  of  Fredericksburg,  advised 
him  to  stay  north  of  the  Rappahannock, 
saying,  "I  would  not  take  any  risk  of 
being  entangled  upon  the  river,  like  an  ox 
jumped  half  over  a  fence,  and  liable  to  be 
torn  by  dogs,  front  and  rear  without  a  fair 
chance  to  gore  one  way  or  kick  the  other." 

General  George  G.  Meade,  commanding 
the  fifth  corps  of  Hooker's  army,  was  asleep 
in  his  tent  near  Frederick,  Maryland,  when 
he  was  aroused  by  the  chief  of  staff  of  the 
secretary  of  war  and,  instead  of  being  taken 
to  Washington,  under  arrest,  as  he  had 
sleepily  anticipated,  was  led,  protesting,  to 
Hooker's  tent,  under  peremptory  orders  to  as 
sume  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
Caution,  quick  temper,  and  irritability  are 
the  qualities  in  Meade  which  made  the  great 
est  impression  on  his  associates.  He  did  not 
belong  to  the  "gallant  soldier"  class,  was 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    167 

not  a  politician,  and  had  no  capacity  to 
humor  the  whims  of  the  public.  He  was, 
however,  a  brilliant  engineer  and  an  unusual 
tactician,  who  stood  better  with  his  superiors 
than  with  his  subordinates.  Unlike  most  of 
the  generals  he  came  of  an  old  and  well- 
known  family,  and  had  a  standing  on  the 
floor  of  the  Philadelphia  "Assembly  Balls" 
as  secure  as  in  the  camp.  It  was  on  June 
28,  with  an  army  sprinkled  over  two  states, 
that  he  took  command. 

There  was  great  risk  in  changing  leaders 
on  the  eve  of  a  general  engagement.  Meade 
had  not  been  in  the  confidence  of  Hooker, 
whom  he  had  preceded  by  two  years  at  West 
Point,  and  had  no  accurate  knowledge  of 
the  location  of  the  various  corps  that  had 
moved  north  on  the  inner  circle,  as  Lee  moved 
on  the  outer.  Hooker  had  been  following 
Lee,  and  on  June  28,  Meade,  after  taking 
account  of  stock,  ordered  the  armies  to  con 
tinue  their  march  to  the  Susquehanna  and 
to  keep  Washington,  Baltimore,  and  Phil 
adelphia  well  covered. 

There  was  commotion  in  the  eastern  cities 
of  the  North.  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
called  for  McClellan  once  more,  while  their 
governors  enlarged  the  home  guard  and 
took  measures  for  defence  that  were  novel 
north  of  the  Potomac.  "Business  stopped," 
says  Rhodes,  and  it  was  said  "that  bankers 
and  merchants  were  making  preparations 
to  remove  specie  and  other  valuables"  from 


168  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Philadelphia.  But  with  all  the  alarm,  stocks 
stayed  where  they  were,  and  there  was  no 
financial  panic.  Even  the  shares  of  the  Penn 
sylvania  Railroad,  whose  line  was  likely  to 
be  torn  to  pieces  by  one  army  or  the  other, 
fell  less  than  two  points  in  the  open  market. 

On  June  28,  1863,  Longs treet  was  already 
in  Pennsylvania,  near  Chambersburg,  while 
the  southern  army,  stretched  behind  him, 
was  beginning  to  consider  concentration. 
Lee  had  no  notion  of  staying  in  the  North,  — 
if  he  broke  up  the  attacks  on  Richmond  he 
would  do  enough.  But  by  June  29,  he  had 
got  so  far  that  he  must  either  fight  a  battle 
or  fall  back.  He  did  not  fear  the  outcome, 
for  his  army  had  grown  steadily  since  Chan- 
cellorsville,  and  was  now  a  trained  and  tem 
pered  machine,  full  of  confidence  acquired 
in  two  great  victories.  The  numbers  were 
not  far  apart.  Meade  had  88,000  men; 
Lee,  76,000. 

Meade  suspected  that  Lee  had  reached  his 
farthest  north,  and  seized  a  convenient  cross 
roads,  where  he  might  easily  intercept  the 
return,  by  whatever  route.  Gettysburg,  in 
southern  Pennsylvania,  is  the  meeting  place 
of  several  important  roads  leading  from  York, 
Harrisburg,  Carlisle,  and  Chambersburg, 
on  the  north,  and  back  to  Maryland,  on 
the  south.  Lee  was  north  of  the  town  when 
Meade's  advance  pushed  into  and  through  it, 
on  July  1.  A  little  further  on,  the  Union  men 
met  the  head  of  the  enemy,  marching  south, 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    169 

and  were  driven  back  upon  the  rear  of  their 
column,  after  a  long  day's  fight.  The  death 
of  Reynolds,  their  commander,  early  in  the 
day,  might  have  accounted  for  greater  demor 
alization  than  occurred.  Meade  had  a  sub 
stitute  ready  at  once,  and  Hancock  was  on 
the  field  by  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  to 
straighten  out  the  regiments  in  the  cemetery 
south  of  Gettysburg.  That  night  both  Lee 
and  Meade  realized  that  the  battle  was 
before  them,  and  prepared  for  it.  The  former 
was  somewhat  weakened  in  his  judgment 
because  of  the  contempt  he  had  begun  to 
acquire  for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  As 
the  ground  lay,  he  was  forced  to  take  the 
offensive. 

During  the  forenoon  of  July  2,  Lee's 
skirmishers  explored  the  long  Union  line,  as 
it  lay  on  the  ridge  of  Cemetery  Hill.  They 
found  it  to  be  in  the  form  of  an  inverted 
capital  U,  with  the  bend  pointing  north.  It 
followed  the  natural  contour  of  the  field, 
being  nearly  everywhere  on  a  hillside.  At 
the  extreme  right,  on  the  east,  Gulp's  Hill 
formed  a  natural  termination  of  the  line; 
another  hill,  Round  Top,  performed  a  similar 
function  on  the  left.  It  was  about  two  miles 
from  the  cemetery  to  the  end  of  the  left; 
the  right  extremity  was  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  nearer;  while  it  was  possible  to  com 
municate  with  all  portions  of  the  line  from 
the  rear,  which  lay  in  the  centre  of  the  U. 
The  only  portion  which  was  not  well  pro- 


170  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

tected,  was  toward  the  left,  where  Sickles 
had  advanced  beyond  his  station  and  rested 
in  the  open  fields.  This,  Longstreet  at 
tacked,  pushing  Sickles  back  to  where  he 
ought  to  have  been,  but  no  further.  Every 
where  along  the  front  the  attack  became 
general  as  the  day  wore  on,  and  at  the  right, 
Gulp's  Hill  was  seized  and  held  over  night. 

On  the  morning  of  July  3,  Lee  thought  to 
end  a  battle  and  record  a  victory.  Instead, 
he  found  Gulp's  Hill  taken  from  him,  and 
learned  that  Longstreet 's  supposed  victory 
over  Sickles  had  only  rectified,  not  weakened, 
Meade's  position.  The  Union  commander, 
less  than  a  week  in  office,  was  waiting  calmly 
for  the  next  attack.  A  young  Wisconsin  offi 
cer  has  described  his  appearance:  "There 
was  no  arrogance  of  hope,  or  timidity  of 
fear  discernible  in  his  face;  but  you  would 
have  supposed  that  he  would  do  his  duty 
conscientiously  and  well,  and  would  be  willing 
to  abide  the  result."  The  same  officer  heard 
Meade  talk  with  Hancock  and  others  during 
the  morning,  and  learned  that  he  was  pleased 
with  the  left,  and  satisfied  with  the  right, 
and  "was  not  of  the  opinion  that  the  enemy 
would  attack  the  centre,  our  artillery  had 
such  sweep  there." 

The  forenoon  of  the  third  day  of  Gettys 
burg  passed  with  nothing  more  than  skirmish 
ing  along  the  front.  The  general  position 
of  Lee  was  well  known,  but  his  intentions 
had  been  revealed  to  his  own  generals  only 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    171 

after  the  reoccupation  of  Gulp's  Hill.  He 
lay  concealed  in  the  timber  of  a  row  of  hills 
generally  concentric  to,  and  outside  of,  Ceme 
tery  Hill,  and  known  as  Seminary  Ridge. 
Between  the  two  lines,  along  the  Union  left, 
was  nearly  a  mile  of  fields  and  orchards,  with 
the  Emmitsburg  Road  running  down  the 
middle.  He  had  failed  to  make  a  gain  at 
either  flank,  and  now  proposed  to  use  fresh 
troops  against  the  thinnest  part  of  Meade's 
line,  where  Meade  did  not  expect  him.  The 
light  camp  lunch  was  consumed,  the  cigars 
had  been  smoked,  and  the  generals  who  had 
eaten  with  Meade  had  started  back  to  their 
posts  when  Lee  commenced  a  terrific  bom 
bardment  of  Meade's  position.  After  more 
than  an  hour  of  this,  the  fire  slackened  and 
rumor  ran  through  the  Union  ranks  that  the 
enemy  was  advancing.  Out  of  the  woods, 
in  front  half  a  mile  long,  column  after  column 
moved  slowly  into  position,  as  if  on  parade. 
Eighteen  thousand  men,  chiefly  Pickett's 
division,  marched  across  the  open  fields 
against  the  centre  of  the  Union  line.  The 
shrapnel  and  cannister  rained  upon  them, 
but  only  made  the  files  close  up  to  fill  their 
gaps.  Without  haste,  and  without  a  quiver, 
the  finest  charge  of  the  Civil  War  was  made. 
In  cold-blooded,  deliberate  courage  it  sur 
passed  the  assault  of  Missionary  Ridge.. 
The  front  of  the  column  crossed  the  whole 
interval  between  the  armies,  and  fought, 
hand  to  hand,  with  the  regiments  of  the 


172  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

wavering  Union  line.  But  the  line  held, 
miscellaneous  regiments  were  led  by  strange 
officers  to  the  rescue,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
those  of  Pickett's  column  who  remained 
alive  began  their  retreat.  The  three  days' 
fighting  had  cost  Lee  22,000  men;  it  cost  the 
victor  nearly  18,000.! 

Like  the  battle  of  Antietam,  Gettysburg 
was  followed  by  a  period  of  inaction.  Lee 
slowly  withdrew,  and  Meade  slowly  followed 
him,  never  gaining  the  credit  which  military 
critics  believe  he  might  have  had  of  destroy 
ing  his  adversary.  Both  armies  crossed  the 
Potomac,  Meade  keeping  to  the  Piedmont, 
east  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  where  Mc- 
Clellan  had  been  in  the  fall  of  1862.  When 
winter  came,  their  positions  were  not  far 
different  from  what  they  had  been  a  year 
before. 

The  victory  of  Gettysburg  preceded  the 
fall  of  Vicksburg  by  one  day.  On  July  5, 
the  whole  United  States  knew  that  the 
Mississippi  was  opened,  and  that  the  irre 
sistible  Lee  had  been  defeated.  Neither 
triumph  had  had  its  equal  in  the  war,  and 
the  combination  led  the  sanguine  to  hope 
that  the  end  was  near.  In  any  foreign  war 
either  would  probably  have  been  decisive, 
but  this  was  not  a  war  to  be  won  by  points. 
The  determination  of  the  Union  to  main 
tain  itself  was  equalled  by  the  determination 

1  Here,   as  elsewhere,    the  figures   include  the  dead  and 
wounded,  but  not  the  captured. 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    173 

of  the  Confederacy  to  secure  its  independence. 
Until  the  last  army  in  the  field  was  gone, 
until  the  last  dollar  had  been  borrowed  and 
spent,  and  the  last  old  man  lined  up  beside 
the  last  small  boy  in  the  Confederate  ranks, 
the  war  was  not  to  end.  If  Davis  and  his 
advisers  had  the  intellectual  acumen,  or 
honesty,  to  see  the  end,  and  failed  to  ask 
for  terms  at  this  time,  the  moral  responsibility 
that  they  assumed  was  great.  Their  people, 
generally  misled  by  their  own  press,  had 
little  notion  of  the  catastrophe. 

Gettysburg  was  a  severe  defeat,  but  Lee 
was  not  overwhelmed  by  it.  He  retired  in 
good  order,  showing  such  strength  that 
Meade  would  not  provoke  him  to  another 
test.  He  resumed  his  guard  of  Richmond, 
and  all  through  the  next  year  kept  it  so  vigi 
lantly  that  the  greatest  of  Union  leaders,  with 
unlimited  resources,  could  not  break  it  down. 

Vicksburg,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  victory 
that  cleared  the  ground.  It  ended  the  strug 
gle  for  the  Mississippi,  and  restricted  the 
working  area  of  the  Confederacy  to  the 
seaboard  and  the  lower  South.  In  no  way 
do  the  relative  results  of  the  fighting  appear 
more  clear  than  in  connection  with  the  civil 
measures  resorted  to  by  Lincoln  in  the 
West  and  in  the  East.  By  the  end  of  1863, 
large  portions  of  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  and 
Louisiana  were  actually  within  the  Union 
lines,  and  contained  no  trace  of  organized 
resistance.  In  the  East,  the  lines  were  where 


174  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

they  had  been  in  1861,  except  for  the  moun 
tain  region  of  Virginia. 

A  counter-revolution  in  Virginia,  in  1861, 
partially  undid  the  work  of  secession.  In 
the  convention  which  determined  to  secede, 
the  vote  was  eighty-eight  to  fifty-five,  the 
minority  representing  the  western  counties, 
where  the  number  of  slaves,  always  small, 
had  actually  diminished  since  1850.  Inter 
course  between  the  sections  had  been  slight. 
From  the  West  came  always  a  few  members 
of  the  legislature,  and  a  few  inmates  of  the 
penitentiary,  it  is  said,  but  there  was  little 
else.  Among  these  mountain  Virginians, 
the  ordinance  of  secession  was  repudiated 
at  once,  and  an  irregular  state  government 
was  erected  at  Wheeling,  that  declared  all 
the  existing  state  offices  vacated  by  the  act 
of  treason,  chose  new  officers,  and  called 
upon  Lincoln  to  recognize  it  as  the  actual 
government  of  Virginia.  Francis  H.  Pierpont 
was  chosen  governor  on  June  20,  1861. 

It  was  the  belief  of  Lincoln  that  no  state 
could  get  out  of  the  Union.  The  seceding 
governments  he  described  as  illegal  con 
spiracies,  and  he  was  quite  willing  to  recog 
nize  as  the  legal  government,  this  provisional 
administration  erected  by  the  loyal  citizens 
of  the  state.  Congress  agreed  with  him, 
admitting  senators  and  representatives  elected 
to  take  the  places  of  those  Virginians  who 
had  resigned.  One  of  the  senators  from  Ten 
nessee,  Andrew  Johnson,  a  Union  Democrat, 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    175 

led  in  the  advocacy  of  the  right  of  these  men 
to  their  seats. 

After  they  had  been  recognized  by  Con 
gress  as  the  state  of  Virginia,  the  western 
Virginians  soon  presented  a  popular  memorial, 
approved  by  their  legislature,  asking  for  the 
division  of  the  state  and  the  creation  of  a 
new  state  in  the  West.  "No  new  State  shall 
be  formed  .  .  .  within  the  Jurisdiction  of 
any  other  State  .  .  .  without  the  Consent" 
of  the  legislature  of  the  state  concerned,  says 
the  Constitution.  This  consent  was  here 
obtained  without  difficulty  since  the  eastern 
population,  which  would  have  opposed  it, 
had  refused  to  co-operate  with  the  loyal 
government,  and  had  thus  thrown  away  its 
voice.  On  the  last  day  of  18@2,  Lincoln 
signed  a  bill  admitting  West  Virginia  into 
the  Union. 

The  debates  over  West  Virginia  gave  rise 
to  constitutional  discussion  of  the  nature 
of  secession,  that  gained  greater  interest  as 
the  war  went  on.  To  the  casual  observer, 
the  state  of  Virginia  in  the  Confederacy  ap 
peared  to  have  all  of  the  attributes  of  the 
old  state  in  the  Union,  to  be  that  state  in 
fact,  as  it  claimed  to  be.  If  this  were  true, 
the  Pierpont  government  was  without  legal 
basis,  and  could  not  give  constitutional 
assent  to  the  partition  of  the  state.  But,  in 
this  case,  it  would  have  also  to  be  admitted 
that  Virginia,  constitutionally  or  not,  had 
in  fact  got  out  of  the  Union  and  maintained 


176  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

an  existence  outside  of  the  Constitution. 
Any  act  of  the  United  States  that  admitted 
that  the  Confederate  state  of  Virginia  was 
Virginia,  must  be  an  admission  that  secession 
was  a  fact. 

Lincoln  denied  the  logical  and  physical 
possibility  of  secession.  Maintaining  the  in 
destructibility  of  the  Union,  he  was  forced 
to  hold  that  Virginia  was  still  in  the  Union, 
though  prevented  from  performing  her  duties 
by  an  illegal  conspiracy  of  her  citizens.  This 
conspiracy,  which  obstructed  the  laws,  was 
to  be  broken  down  by  the  President,  under 
his  constitutional  obligation  to  enforce  the 
law.  He  was  ready  to  use  his  discretion  in 
recognizing  as  Virginia  any  loyal  government 
that  appeared  to  have  no  opposition  among 
loyal  citizens.  This  was  highly  expedient, 
and  he  believed  it  to  be  entirely  constitu 
tional.  His  cabinet  was  evenly  divided  on 
the  question,  however,  and  in  Congress  there 
was  wide  range  of  opinion.  Some  admitted 
that  secession  had  broken  the  Union;  others, 
like  Sumner,  held  secession  to  have  consti 
tuted  an  act  of  suicide,  ending  the  existence 
of  the  state,  and  reducing  it  to  the  condi 
tion  of  other  unorganized  territory  of  the 
United  States.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Penn 
sylvania,  went  even  further,  held  that 
secession  was  annihilation,  that  the  status 
during  the  war  was  of  no  consequence,  that 
if  the  South  should  be  won  back  by  force  it 
must  be  considered  as  a  conquered  province, 


GETTYSBURG  — RECONSTRUCTION  177 

subject  in  all  things  to  the  will  of  the  con 
queror.  In  this  confusion,  Lincoln  held 
tight  to  his  guiding  doctrine  of  the  perma 
nence  of  the  Union,  recognized  the  Pierpont 
government  as  legal,  and  signed  the  West 
Virginia  bill. 

The  Pierpont  government  became  a  quaint 
curiosity  after  the  admission  of  West  Vir 
ginia,  in  which  alone  it  had  any  supporters. 
The  Virginia  which  it  claimed,  in  its  reduced 
degree,  to  represent,  was  in  Lee's  possession, 
and  was  content  to  be  there.  For  a  time, 
Pierpont  and  his  state  officials,  remained  on 
what  fragment  of  Virginia  soil  they  could 
find  within  Union  lines;  but  ultimately 
the  government  was  disregarded  and  aban 
doned,  as  representing  no  political  fact.  The 
only  portion  of  the  Confederacy,  east  of  the 
Appalachians,  won  and  held  by  Lincoln  at 
the  end  of  1863,  was  the  mountain  country 
now  admitted  as  the  state  of  West  Virginia. 

The  progress  of  the  war  in  the  West 
raised  problems  similar  to  those  in  Virginia, 
on  a  larger  scale.  As  soon  as  the  Union  armies 
had  gained  a  foothold  in  Tennessee,  after 
the  surrender  of  Fort  Donelson  and  the  oc 
cupation  of  Nashville,  Lincoln  appointed  a 
war  governor  to  administer  the  civil  interests 
of  those  Tennessee  citizens  within  the  Union 
lines.  East  Tennessee,  with  Knoxville  as 
its  metropolis,  was  as  loyal  as  West  Vir 
ginia,  and  might  have  acted  similarly  had  it 
been  nearer  to  the  Ohio  River.  On  March 


178  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

5,  1862,  the  Senate  confirmed  the  appoint 
ment  of  Andrew  Johnson,  as  military  gov 
ernor,  —  an  office  that  had  no  previous 
existence,  no  precedents,  and  no  legal  limits 
for  its  guidance.  Johnson,  its  incumbent, 
was  better  qualified  to  hold  it  by  his  aggres 
sive  loyalty  than  by  his  temper  or  discretion. 
The  personality  of  Andrew  Johnson,  which 
became  of  critical  importance  in  1865,  was 
shown  in  1861,  when  he  refused  to  be  bound 
by  the  secession  of  Tennessee,  and  retained 
his  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Clamor 
at  home,  threats,  and  epithets  failed  to  move 
him.  "I  intend  to  stand  by  that  flag,"  was 
his  resolute  utterance.  Stubborn  honest 
loyalty  was  the  keynote  of  his  character. 
In  thirty-five  years  of  public  life  before  the 
war,  he  had  proved  in  his  person  that  Amer 
ica  was  the  land  of  opportunity.  Born  in 
poverty  and  ignorance,  which  his  widowed 
mother  could  not  lighten,  he  was  one  of  the 
humble  class  of  "poor  whites"  so  common 
in  the  South.  He  began  life  as  a  tailor  in 
Tennessee.  His  wife  taught  him  to  write, 
and  experience  taught  him  the  deep  gulf 
between  the  southern  aristocrat  and  the 
commoner.  Before  he  was  thirty  he  had 
been  mayor  of  his  village  and  member  of 
the  legislature.  He  served  five  terms  in 
Congress  before  he  became  governor  of 
Tennessee,  in  1853;  and  after  two  adminis 
trations  at  the  head  of  his  commonwealth 
he  became  its  senator.  His  career  is  one  of 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    179 

the  evidences  that  the  power  of  the  planta 
tion  class  was  waning  even  before  secession. 
His  prominence,  loyalty,  courage,  and  popu 
larity  among  Tennessee  Unionists,  justified 
his  appointment  to  a  difficult  and  undefined 
office. 

The  functions  of  the  military  governor  of 
Tennessee  were  to  silence  treason,  restrain 
the  press,  maintair  the  peace,  administer 
justice,  and  feed  the  destitute.  All  these 
Johnson  did  with  an  ability  that  made  him 
a  conspicuous  figure  throughout  the  United 
States.  He  was  to  keep  things  going,  in 
accordance  with  Lincoln's  theory  that  Ten 
nessee  remained  a  state,  with  all  the  rights 
that  it  was  practicable  to  accord  her.  Late 
in  1862,  by  order  of  the  President,  he  tried 
to  hold  an  election  for  congressmen,  but 
found  that  conditions  were  too  much  dis 
turbed  for  it.  Indeed,  for  six  months  more, 
eastern  Tennessee  was  in  confusion.  In 
July,  1863,  there  were  forty  counties  repre 
sented  in  a  Union  convention  at  Nashville, 
and  Lincoln  began  to  hope  for  a  new  conven 
tion  to  undo  the  work  of  secession.  In 
September,  he  wrote  to  Johnson:  "All  Ten 
nessee  is  now  clear  of  armed  insurrectionists. 
You  need  not  to  be  reminded  that  it  is  the 
nick  of  time  for  reinaugurating  a  loyal 
State  government."  Chickamauga  and  Chat 
tanooga  had  both  to  be  fought  before  actual 
conditions  justified  the  President's  state 
ment,  but  by  December,  Tennessee  was 


180  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

free  and  ready  for  reconstruction.  "Ten 
nessee  is  not  out  of  the  Union,  never  has 
been,  and  never  will  be  out,"  thundered  the 
governor  as  he  encouraged  his  loyal  followers. 
"Treason  must  be  made  odious,  traitors 
must  be  punished  and  impoverished,"  he 
declared  on  another  occasion.  Personally 
rancorous  toward  the  members  of  that 
aristocracy  from  which  he  was  excluded, 
Johnson's  spirit  was  far  different  from  that 
of  Lincoln. 

While  Johnson  was  following  up  the  vic 
torious  Union  army  as  it  occupied  Tennessee, 
another  war  governor  was  established  in 
Louisiana,  with  headquarters  at  New  Or 
leans.  The  occupation  of  New  Orleans  in 
the  spring  of  1862,  brought  with  it  problems 
of  government  in  Louisiana  that  could  not 
be  evaded.  Loyal  citizens  were  fewer  than 
in  Tennessee,  but  people  and  city  could  not 
be  left  outside  the  law.  George  F.  Shepley, 
who  was  appointed  governor  in  August, 
1862,  had  been  military  mayor  of  New  Or 
leans,  by  order  of  General  Butler.  Courts 
were  soon  established,  and  early  in  1863, 
an  election  of  congressmen  was  held  in  two 
districts, —  the  only  two  within  the  Union 
lines.  A  military  governor  for  Arkansas, 
John  S.  Phelps,  was  appointed  a  few  weeks 
after  Shepley,  but  until  after  Vicksburg,  and 
the  taking  of  Little  Rock  in  September,  1863, 
the  Union  forces  had  too  little  foothold  in 
that  state  to  do  effective  work. 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION  181 

Congress  was  changing  its  views  regarding 
slavery  in  1862,  but  it  continued  to  give  its 
countenance  to  Lincoln's  steps  in  reorganiz 
ing  the  Confederate  states  as  rapidly  as  they 
were  occupied.  It  had  admitted  senators 
and  representatives  from  Virginia,  for  the 
term  expiring  March  4,  1863.  It  now  ad 
mitted  the  two  representatives  chosen  in 
Louisiana,  seating  them  for  the  remainder  of 
the  same  session.  Tennessee  was  prevented 
by  the  Confederate  raiders  from  taking  part 
in  these  early  elections,  although  in  fact  she 
was  more  completely  Unionized  than  either 
Louisiana  or  Virginia.  This  compliance  of 
Congress,  and  the  military  successes  at 
Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg,  led  the  President 
to  take  another  step  toward  reconstruction. 

By  December,  1863,  at  least  three  states 
were  ripe  for  reorganization,  Louisiana, 
Arkansas,  and  Tennessee.  In  these  the 
President  had  fulfilled  his  constitutional 
obligation  to  see  that  the  laws  be  faithfully 
executed,  and  had  restored  a  fair  degree  of 
peace.  He  believed  that  his  was  the  right  to 
determine  the  end  of  resistance,  as  he  had 
the  beginning,  as  well  as  to  pardon  offend 
ers  against  the  laws.  On  December  8, 
1863,  he  issued  a  proclamation  which  was 
the  result  of  his  interpretation  of  these 
powers.  All  persons  who  had  been  impli 
cated  in  the  insurrection,  with  certain  ex 
ceptions,  were  authorized  to  take  an  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  United  States,  and  receive 


182  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

full  pardon.  The  excepted  classes  embraced 
those  holding  important  civil,  military,  or 
diplomatic  offices  in  "the  so-called  Confed 
erate  government,"  those  who  had  resigned 
similar  offices  in  the  United  States  to  aid 
the  Confederacy,  and  those  who  had  mal 
treated  prisoners  of  war.  The  rank  and  file, 
whom  Lincoln  believed  to  have  been  deceived 
by  their  leaders,  were  to  have  only  a  formal 
obstacle  placed  in  their  return.  When  in 
any  state  a  number,  equal  to  one-tenth  of 
the  vote  cast  for  President  in  1860,  had  taken 
the  oath,  a  government  was  to  be  erected  by 
the  loyal  citizens,  which  Lincoln  pledged 
himself  to  recognize  as  legal.  He  could  not 
guarantee  that  its  senators  and  representa 
tives  would  get  into  Congress,  since  each 
house  is  the  exclusive  judge  of  the  admission 
of  its  members,  but  so  far  as  the  Executive 
could  determine  the  fact,  the  restoration 
would  be  complete. 

The  reception  of  this  proclamation  by 
Congress  was  such  as  to  encourage  the  Pres 
ident.  "It  is  rare,"  wrote  his  secretaries, 
Nicolay  and  Hay,  "that  so  important  a 
state  paper  has  been  received  with  such 
unanimous  tokens  of  enthusiastic  adhesion." 
The  last  Congress  had  admitted  represen 
tatives  from  the  restored  states,  and,  said 
the  secretaries,  the  new  Congress  raised  no 
voice  of  discord.  "Men  acted  as  though  the 
millenium  had  come.  Chandler  was  de 
lighted,  Sumner  was  joyous,  apparently 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    183 

forgetting  for  the  moment  his  doctrine  of 
State  suicide;  while  at  the  other  political 
pole  Dixon  and  Reverdy  Johnson  said  the 
message  was  highly  satisfactory.  .  .  .  The  con 
servatives  and  radicals  vied  with  each  other 
in  claiming  that  the  message  represented 
their  own  views  of  the  crisis.  .  .  .  For  a  moment 
the  most  prejudiced  Democrats  found  little 
to  say  against  the  message;  they  called  it 
'very  ingenious  and  cunning,  admirably 
calculated  to  deceive. ' 

The  progress  of  the  war  had  made  it  pos 
sible  for  Lincoln  to  begin  the  reconstruc 
tion  of  three  of  the  states  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  upon  which  Vieksburg  had  set  its 
seal.  Gettysburg  had  released  nothing; 
West  Virginia  had  dropped  away  from  the 
Confederacy  of  its  own  weight.  The  defen 
sive  strategy  of  Lee  had  held  the  Confederate 
line  through  both  battles  of  Bull  Run,  the 
Peninsula  campaign,  Antietam,  Fredericks- 
burg,  Chancellorsville,  and  even  Gettysburg. 
Meade  was  no  nearer  to  Richmond  than 
McClellan  had  been. 

The  crisis  of  the  war,  however,  was  passed, 
and  no  days  in  the  future  wrere  to  be  so  dark 
as  those  that  had  gone.  Men  who  had  it 
in  them  to  become  Unionists,  had  become  so. 
For  these,  Lincoln  took  advantage  of  events 
to  phrase  a  paragraph  that  summed  up  all 
the  aspirations  of  the  nation.  On  September 
19,  he  attended  the  dedication  of  a  cemetery 
at  Gettysburg,  and  listened  to  the  ripe 


184  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

oration  of  Edward  Everett.  When  the  latter 
finished  his  peroration,  "the  echoes  of  which 
were  lost  in  the  long  and  hearty  plaudits 
of  the  great  multitude,"  the  President  of  the 
United  States  spoke  a  few  sentences  that 
embraced  the  whole  history  of  the  Union, 
and  constitute  the  most  distinctive  American 
utterance  of  the  nineteenth  century: 

"Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
conceived  in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the 
proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 
Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war, 
testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation 
so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long 
endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battlefield 
of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a 
portion  of  that  field,  as  a  final  resting-place 
for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that 
nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting 
and  proper  that  we  should  do  this.  But,  in 
a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate  —  we  can 
not  consecrate  —  we  cannot  hallow  —  this 
ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and  dead, 
who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it,  far 
above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract. 
The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember, 
what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what 
they  did  here.  It  is  for  us  the  living,  rather, 
to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work 
which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far 
so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to 
be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining 


GETTYSBURG  —  RECONSTRUCTION    185 

before  us  —  that  from  these  honored  dead 
we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for 
which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of 
devotion  —  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that 
these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain- 
that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new 
birth  of  freedom  —  and  that  government  of 
the  people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall 
not  perish  from  the  earth." 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  BALANCE   OF   POWER 

A  CAUSTIC  pen,  in  the  hand  of  Owen  Wister, 
in  his  little  life  of  Grant,  has  described  the 
change  of  feeling  that  was  hastened  in  Eng 
land  when  the  news  of  Gettysburg  and  Vicks- 
burg  was  heard.  "The  London  Times  and 
Saturday  Review"  he  says,  "had  lately  been 
quoting  the  Bible  as  sanction  for  slavery; 
for  England  dearly  loves  the  Bible;  but  now 
many  voices  in  London  became  sure  that 
slavery  was  wicked;  for  England  dearly 
loves  success."  The  crisis  in  foreign  relations 
was  passed  as  soon  as  the  outcome  of  the  war 
was  clear.  Recognition  is  to  be  justified  only 
by  the  success  of  the  people  fighting  for 
their  independence;  it  is  out  of  question 
in  a  struggle  doomed  to  failure.  But  any 
account  of  English  opinion,  which  relates 
only  the  motives  of  expediency  that  inspired 
the  British  cabinet,  falls  far  short  of  the  fact, 
and  ignores  a  disinterested,  unselfish  popular 
movement  that  has  few  parallels  in  history. 
The  balance  of  power  between  the  Union  and 
the  South  was  indeed  carefully  watched, 
but  after  1862  the  English  middle  class 

186 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        187 

became  convinced  that  one  of  the  two  sides 
was  right. 

The  fullest  and  most  judicious  account  of 
the  trend  of  English  opinion,  after  the  escape 
of  the  Alabama  in  1862,  is  to  be  found  in 
the  pages  of  Mr.  James  Ford  Rhodes,  who 
shows  that  direct  sympathy  with  the  South 
was  confined  largely  to  members  of  one 
aristocracy,  feeling  for  those  of  another. 
Sympathy  was  re-enforced  by  dislike  of  the 
United  States,  on  its  own  account,  —  a  con 
sciousness  of  its  stubbornness  that  was  incon 
veniencing  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  that 
could  be  summed  up  in  the  words:  "The 
war  can  only  end  in  one  way.  Why  not 
accept  the  facts  and  let  the  South  begone?" 
The  English  radicals,  who  were  with  the 
United  States  at  all  times,  were  in  opposition 
to  Lord  Palmerston's  government,  and  made 
him  less  willing  to  see  good  in  the  northern 
cause.  After  the  second  Bull  Run,  Russell 
and  Palmerston  agreed  that  the  time  had 
nearly  come  to  offer  mediation;  but  Antietam 
postponed  the  day,  while  the  emancipation 
proclamation  started  a  new  and  positive 
current  of  feeling  among  the  middle  and  lower 
classes. 

The  London  Times  denounced  the  emanci 
pation  proclamation  as  an  attempt  to  incite 
a  servile  war,  but  anti-slavery  sentiment  ac 
cepted  it  as  something  different,  greeting 
"the  dawn  of  the  new  year  [1863]  as  the 
beginning  of  an  epoch  of  universal  freedom 


188  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

upon  the  Western  continent,  and  of  close 
friendship  between  the  people  of  England 
and  America."  Workmen  began  to  appre 
ciate  its  significance.  Laborers  of  Man 
chester  and  Sheffield,  some  of  them  idle  and 
hungry  from  the  closing  down  of  the  cotton 
mills,  resolved  against  the  "wicked  object" 
of  the  Confederacy.  John  Bright,  always  a 
liberal,  summed  it  up  in  a  speech  to  the 
London  trades  unions:  "Impartial  history 
will  tell  that,  when  your  statesmen  were 
hostile  or  coldly  indifferent,  when  many  of 
your  rich  men  were  corrupt,  when  your  press 
-which  ought  to  have  instructed  and  de 
fended —  was  mainly  written  to  betray,  the 
fate  of  a  continent  and  its  vast  population 
being  in  peril,  you  clung  to  freedom  with  an 
unfaltering  trust  that  God  in  His  infinite 
mercy  will  make  it  the  heritage  of  all  His 
children." 

The  American  minister  in  London  recog 
nized  that  the  current  of  opinion  had  set  in 
favor  of  the  Union,  early  in  1863;  but  it 
remained  to  be  seen  whether  it  would  be 
stronger  than  official  distrust.  In  the  spring, 
Parliament  debated  the  American  situa 
tion,  using  the  Alabama  correspondence  as 
a  text.  Friends  of  America  attacked  the 
government  from  the  opposition  benches, 
bringing  out  explanations  from  the  prime 
minister  and  the  solicitor-general.  Palmer- 
ston  sneered  at  the  claims  of  the  United 
States,  denounced  them  as  a  means  of 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        189 

creating  political  capital,  and  assured  Par 
liament  that  England  had  enforced  her 
neutral  obligations.  As  Adams  wrote  in  his 
diary,  he  indulged  "as  usual,  in  derogatory 
and  insulting  language  rather  than  in 
conciliation." 

Friends  of  the  North,  says  Mr.  Rhodes, 
believed  that  this  debate  presaged  war,  and 
the  Confederate  envoys,  unrecognized  though 
they  were,  took  comfort.  Since  the  departure 
of  the  Alabama  the  vessels  for  their  navy 
had  been  hurried  on.  One  of  them,  the 
Alexandra,  was  seized  by  Russell  in  April; 
but  two  others,  iron-clad  rams,  continued 
under  construction  in  the  yard  of  the  Lairds. 
When  Adams  called  these  to  the  attention  of 
the  foreign  office,  Lord  Russell  found  that 
while,  by  common  knowledge,  they  were 
for  the  Confederacy,  the  contracts  showed 
them  to  belong  to  a  French  firm,  and  to  be 
building  for  the  service  of  a  peaceful  country. 
Yet  Adams  continued  to  bring  in  testimony 
as  to  their  real  intent.  On  September  1, 
1863,  the  foreign  secretary  wrote  him  that 
there  was  no  evidence  on  which  his  govern 
ment  could  interfere.  Four  days  later,  the 
American  minister,  fearing  the  worst,  and 
mindful  of  the  debates  of  March,  wrote  his 
final  note  of  protest,  in  which  he  used  words 
that  have  become  historic:  "It  would  be 
superfluous  in  me  to  point  out  to  your  lord 
ship  that  this  is  war." 

It  was  a  fortunate  accident  that  Adams's 


190  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

letter  of  the  5th  crossed  in  the  mails  a  further 
note  from  the  foreign  office  stating  that  the 
rams  had  been  seized.  Lord  Russell  was 
trying  to  do  both  the  friendly  and  the  legal 
thing,  and  had  reached,  finally,  the  conclusion 
that  it  was  better  to  err  on  the  side  of  cau 
tion,  if  at  all.  After  this  episode,  there  was 
no  more  fear  of  recognition  of  the  Confed 
eracy  by  either  England  or  France.  Up  till 
July,  Napoleon  III  had  been  trying  to  prod 
the  English  cabinet  to  a  mediation  or  a 
recognition,  but  the  news  of  Gettysburg  and 
Vicksburg  changed  the  aspect  of  events,  and 
removed  the  positive  dangers  of  European 
interference.  The  growth  of  middle-class 
sympathy  worked  for  the  creation  of  a 
positive  friendship. 

The  distribution  of  strength  between  the 
Union  and  the  South,  which  showed  its 
proportions  in  the  critical  year,  1863,  was 
based  on  population,  wealth,  and  improved 
opportunity.  The  long  contest  between 
Washington  and  Richmond  shows  clearly 
that  the  North  did  not  win  because  of  superior 
valor  or  higher  generalship.  With  ragged 
troops,  for  whom  a  victory  often  spelt  rations 
and  shoes,  as  well  as  glory,  and  whose  num 
bers  were  shrinking,  Lee  was  standing  off 
army  after  army.  The  numbers  of  his  adver 
sary  had  much  to  do  with  the  result;  his 
wealth  had  more  to  do  with  it.  The  key  to 
the  understanding  of  the  war  is  to  be  found 
in  the  material  resources  of  the  contestants. 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        191 

In  the  eleven  states  which  entered  the 
Confederacy,  excluding  West  Virginia,  there 
were,  in  1860,  1,200,000  men  who  came 
within  the  military  ages  of  seventeen  and 
fifty  before  1865.  Nearly  all  of  these  volun 
teered,  or  were  drafted  into  the  army.  It 
is  a  matter  of  pride  throughout  the  South 
that  there  were  few  stay-at-homes.  The 
materials  do  not  exist  for  an  accurate  state 
ment  of  the  aggregate  of  enlistments,  for  the 
Confederacy  was  too  hardly  pressed  to  put 
much  stress  on  formal  records,  and  many 
of  those  that  once  existed  have  been  de 
stroyed.  But  the  closest  student  of  numbers 
and  losses,  Colonel  Thomas  L.  Livermore, 
has  estimated  that  the  total  of  enlistments, 
for  various  terms,  was  quite  as  large  as  the 
total  military  population;  while  the  period 
of  service  was  equivalent  to  that  of  about 
1,000,000  men,  serving  each  three  years.  In 
the  Union  armies,  it  is  known  that  over 
2,800,000  men  enlisted,  equivalent,  on  the 
three-year  basis,  to  1,500,000.  The  Confed 
eracy  gave  a  larger  proportion  of  its  men  to 
the  ranks  than  did  the  North,  yet  it  was 
outnumbered  in  the  ratio  of  three  to  two. 

The  enthusiasm  with  which  the  South  sent 
this  million  to  the  front  is  commonly  over 
stated.  After  a  year  of  war,  voluntary  en 
listment  fell  away,  in  both  sections.  It 
was  stimulated  in  the  North  for  another 
year  by  cash  bounties,  which  the  South  could 
not  afford  to  duplicate.  In  April,  1862,  the 


192  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Confederacy  was  forced  to  fall  back  upon 
conscription,  and  during  the  next  three 
years  it  developed  an  elaborate  machine  for 
drafting  into  the  armies  every  available  man 
between  the  ages  of  seventeen  and  fifty.  The 
willingness  of  individuals  to  fight  is  no  test 
of  the  popularity  of  any  war. 

With  its  men  on  the  firing-line,  industry 
in  the  South  would  have  stopped,  had  not 
its  women  taken  the  reins  and  its  slaves 
stayed  loyal.  That  class,  which  northern 
abolitionists  regarded  as  downtrodden  and 
oppressed,  continued  at  work  with  a  devo 
tion  and  fidelity  that  are  the  best  answers 
to  those  who  deny  it  virtue  or  capacity. 
Cotton  and  tobacco  continued  to  be  planted 
and  harvested.  Food  was  always  to  be  had. 
In  Richmond,  men  with  money  could  live 
well.  But  as  the  Union  blockade  tightened 
its  grip  on  southern  ports,  and  kept  both  the 
cotton  in  and  the  luxuries  out,  southern  life 
was  reduced  to  the  lowest  terms  of  mere 
necessities.  It  was  made  clear  how  com 
pletely  the  old  South  had  depended  on  the 
outside  world,  in  its  devotion  to  its  staple 
products.  Clothing  grew  simpler  and  plainer 
until  it  became  threadbare.  The  family 
silver  remained,  to  decorate  pork,  corn-pone, 
and  potatoes.  The  sick  suffered  for  the  lack 
of  delicacies,  and  medicines  were  to  be  had 
only  when  a  successful  blockade  runner 
evaded  the  watchful  Union  gunboats.  Even 
then,  what  medicines  escaped  impressment 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        193 

for  the  armies  were  too  costly  for  general 
use.  When  the  war  was  over,  the  southern 
states  were  worn  out  and  demoralized.  What 
ever  broke  down,  remained  unrepaired  for 
the  lack  of  labor  and  materials.  The  rail 
ways,  worn  under  heavy  traffic,  could  not  be 
renewed.  Machinery  stood  idle  for  the  lack 
of  single  parts.  Even  had  the  men  remained 
at  home,  the  blockade  would  ultimately 
have  reduced  the  South. 

The  cost  of  slave  labor  and  the  exploita 
tion  of  restricted  crops  was  paid  when  the 
South  needed  all  its  strength,  and  found  it 
limited.  Never  had  the  old  South  possessed 
the  capital  for  industrial  development.  Its 
railways  were  built  on  money  borrowed 
north  or  abroad.  Every  planter  who  was 
successful  found  himself  obliged  to  keep 
reinvesting  his  profits  in  land  and  slaves,  and 
had  no  surplus  for  general  investment.  In 
its  incapacity  either  to  borrow  from  its  citi 
zens,  or  to  tax  them,  the  Confederacy  proved 
the  weakness  of  the  plantation  system. 

War,  after  all  is  said,  is  chiefly  a  matter  of 
finance.  Upon  the  shoulders  of  C.  G.  Mem- 
minger,  Confederate  secretary  of  the  treas 
ury,  fell  the  burden  of  finding,  somewhere, 
the  means  for  maintaining  the  army  in  fight 
ing  trim.  The  first  miscalculation  was  funda 
mental:  cotton  had  been  relied  on  as  capital, 
but  when  the  blockade  became  effective,  and 
Europe  failed  to  intervene  to  break  it,  this 
resource  collapsed,  for  the  South  could  neither 


194  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

eat  nor  manufacture  its  staple  product. 
There  are  only  two  means  of  raising  money 
known  to  governments;  these  are  loans  and 
taxes.  In  the  long  run,  taxes  are  the  sole 
reliance,  for  nations,  like  persons,  cannot 
continue  permanently  to  consume  more  than 
they  produce;  for  short  periods,  however, 
the  public  debt  may  supplement  the  tax. 

Heavy  taxation  was  urged  by  Memminger, 
early  in  1861,  as  needed  both  for  revenue 
and  to  solidify  the  government.  He  was 
blocked  by  the  fact  that  one  of  the  chief 
subordinate  motives  of  secession  was  the 
only  method  of  taxation  which  the  United 
States  had  found  effective.  Rarely  had  the 
United  States  raised  funds  by  direct  taxa 
tion;  it  had  instead  relied  upon  the  easily 
collected  tariffs,  levied  upon  goods  imported. 
Against  a  tariff  for  protection  the  South  had 
long  contended;  it  did  not  know  how  to 
levy  one  purely  for  revenue;  and,  had  it 
known  how,  any  tariff  would  have  been 
reduced  in  value  because  the  blockade  was 
effective  in  excluding  from  Confederate  ports 
those  imports  on  which  it  could  be  collected. 
The  tariff  bill  that  was  finally  passed  imitated 
the  last  Democratic  tariffs  of  the  United  States, 
and  produced  during  the  Civil  War  about 
$1,000,000  in  specie.  The  Union  armies 
often  consumed  thrice  as  much  in  a  single 
day. 

Internal  taxes,  alone,  were  left,  and  these 
were  reduced  in  their  effectiveness  by  both 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        195 

the  legal  system  of  the  Confederacy,  and  its 
economic  condition.  Dreading  heavy  taxa 
tion,  says  Schwab,  the  able  historian  of  Con 
federate  finance,  the  Congress  started,  in 
1861,  with  a  direct  tax  of  one-half  of  one 
per  cent  on  all  the  property  in  the  Confed 
eracy.  If  all  of  this  had  been  collected  in 
coin,  it  would  have  produced  $21,000,000; 
but  some  of  it  was  never  paid,  and  most  of 
it  was  avoided  by  the  people.  Tender  of 
state  susceptibilities,  Congress  had  allowed 
the  states  to  pay  their  quotas  directly,  and 
then  reimburse  themselves  by  taxing  their 
citizens.  Most  of  them  borrowed  the  money 
to  pay  their  quotas,  thus  avoiding  the  taxa 
tion.  Only  a  willingness  to  pay  the  cost  can 
justify  a  revolution;  or  the  ability  to  pay, 
make  it  succeed.  Here  the  Confederacy 
imposed  upon  posterity  as  much  of  the  cost 
of  the  war  as  it  could.  But  even  if  it  had 
been  disposed  to  submit  to  heavy  direct 
taxes,  the  South  had  little  ready  money  with 
which  to  pay,  and  after  the  loss  of  its  cotton 
market  could  not  hope  to  raise  large  sums. 
Taxation  soon  broke  down,  and  the  govern 
ment  accepted  payments  in  kind,  in  cotton 
bales,  or  agricultural  produce.  It  fed  as 
much  of  the  latter  to  the  troops  as  possible, 
and  stored  the  former  in  government  ware 
houses,  hoping  for  a  happy  accident  that 
would  enable  it  to  ship  the  bales  to  European 
mills.  Once  in  a  while,  a  cargo  succeeded  in 
dodging  the  blockade,  and  commanded  a 


196  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

famine  price  abroad,  but  the  total  return  was 
slight.  Schwab  thinks  the  total  Confederate 
revenue,  from  taxation  of  all  kinds,  was 
equivalent  to  about  $100,000,000,  in  specie. 

Borrowing  was  tried  when  taxation  failed. 
Bonds  of  the  Confederate  States  were  au 
thorized  in  1861,  and  were  sold  at  home 
and  abroad.  At  home  they  realized  some 
$15,000,000,  in  gold,  and  abroad,  especially 
in  England  and  France,  they  were  readily 
disposed  of.  The  foreign  loan  had  a  face 
value  of  £2,500,000,  but  netted  for  the  Con 
federacy  not  over  $6,250,000.  Counting  in 
all  the  sources  from  which  the  government 
obtained  coin,  the  most  important  being  the 
fifteen-million  loan,  the  foreign  loan,  and 
seizures  from  United  States  depositories  in 
the  South,  Schwab  estimates  that  in  the 
whole  four  years,  not  over  $27,000,000 
found  its  way  into  the  Confederate  treasury. 

Voluntary  loans  and  taxation  played  an 
insignificant  part  in  the  Confederate  war. 
Forced  loans,  which  took  the  form  of  an 
irredeemable  paper  money,  were  the  chief 
reliance.  Before  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter, 
the  issue  of  promissory  notes  was  begun, 
and  before  the  end  of  the  first  year,  these 
constituted  nearly  eighty  per  cent  of  the 
total  indebtedness.  Confederate  notes  be 
came  the  ordinary  currency  of  the  South, 
and  declined  in  value,  steadily,  as  the  war 
progressed.  For  a  few  months,  only,  did 
patriotic  enthusiasm  keep  them  at  par.  Their 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        197 

increasing  flood  was  swollen  by  the  issues  of 
states,  cities,  banks,  and  individuals,  until  it 
is  impossible  to  tell,  even  roughly,  the  total 
amount  afloat.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  in  crises  the  officials  of  government 
issued  unauthorized  millions  to  tide  over 
emergencies.  The  value  of  this  currency  is 
more  easily  learned  than  its  volume.  Gas 
at  fifty  dollars  a  thousand  is  reported,  and 
flour  at  three  hundred  dollars  a  barrel.  In 
the  month  of  Vicksburg,  a  gold  dollar  would 
buy  nine  dollars  in  Confederate  paper;  it 
would  buy  twenty  a  year  later;  in  March, 
1865,  it  would  exchange  for  sixty-one. 

The  public  finances  of  the  United  States 
stand  out  in  glaring  contrast  to  those  of  the 
Confederacy.  Like  the  seceding  states,  the 
Union  resorted  to  taxation,  to  voluntary 
loans,  and  to  paper  currency,  but  the  amounts 
of  these,  all  of  which  were  ultimately  main 
tained  at  par,  showed  a  credit  which  the 
southern  leaders  had  not  anticipated.  Con 
gress  raised  by  taxation,  in  the  four  years 
ending  in  1865,  $667,000,000;  it  was  able  to 
increase  the  bonded  debt  by  $2,140,000,000; 
it  circulated  $458,000,000  in  promissory 
notes.  During  these  four  years,  the  treasury 
paid  out  over  $3,300,000,000.  There  are  no 
figures  of  Confederate  expenditure  to  put 
beside  these;  if  there  were,  the  deprecia 
tion  of  the  currency  would  make  their  in 
terpretation  a  fiscal  puzzle.  The  total  of 
$27,000,000,  in  specie,  which  Schwab  believes 


198  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the    southern    treasury    received,    suggests, 
but  does  not  really  afford,  a  comparison. 

The  average  annual  expenditure  of  the 
United  States  in  the  five  years  before  the 
war  was  under  $67,000,000;  in  the  next 
four  years,  it  was  over  $800,000,000,  while 
the  duty  of  directing  the  transition  to  this 
twelve-fold  increase  was  entrusted  by  Lin 
coln  to  the  Ohio  lawyer,  Salmon  Portland 
Chase.  Prior  to  the  war,  nearly  the  whole 
revenue  came  from  the  protective  tariff,  and 
there  had  been  no  internal  revenue  since  the 
War  of  1812.  The  belief  of  Congress  that  the 
new  war  was  not  to  be  protracted,  made  it 
reluctant  to  impose  unpopular  taxes  on  the 
North.  There  was  a  new  protective  tariff, 
bearing  the  name  of  Morrill,  of  Vermont, 
passed  in  the  closing  days  of  Buchanan's  ad 
ministration,  and  still  untried  when  Congress 
convened,  on  July  4,  1861,  for  its  first  war 
session.  The  internal  and  income  taxes, 
levied  at  this  session,  did  not  become  effec 
tive  until  the  second  year  of  the  war,  netting 
by  the  summer  of  1863  only  $40,000,000. 
But  Congress  learned  much  about  taxation 
and  the  willingness  of  the  North  to  pay.  In 
the  last  year  of  war,  the  internal  revenue 
produced  $209,000,000.  In  successive  acts, 
Congress  laid  a  tax  wherever  it  could  find 
"an  article,  a  product,  a  trade,  a  profession, 
or  a  source  of  income;"  stamps  of  the 
internal  revenue  were  stuck  wherever  a 
place  large  enough  to  hold  them  could  be 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        199 

found.  The  North  paid  them  all  without 
distress. 

The  receipts  from  the  tariff  were  soon 
equalled  and  outdone  by  the  internal  revenue. 
The  Morrill  act  was  revised  in  1862  and 
1864,  partly  to  secure  larger  revenue,  and 
partly  to  protect  the  heavily  taxed  Ameri 
can  manufacturer  from  foreign  competition. 
From  all  sources,  the  taxation  of  the  four 
years  amounted  to  $667,000,000,  while  the 
fourth  year  produced  nearly  six  times  as 
much  as  the  first. 

Neither  the  North  nor  the  South  had,  in 
1861,  a  currency  equal  to  the  stress  which 
was  placed  upon  it.  There  was^no  national 
bank,  and  even  the  coined  money  issuedTby 
the  United  States  was  insufficient.  Federal 
officers,  with  large  disbursements  to  make, 
occasionally  had  to  wait  at  the  mints,  while 
the  money  was  being  manufactured.  The 
deficiency  in  money  was  provided  for  by 
some  sixteen  hundred  state  or  private  banks, 
which,  without  restraint  or  uniformity,  sup 
plied  paper  notes  for  their  immediate  com 
munities.  They  professed  to  redeem  these 
in  gold,  on  demand,  but  their  reserves  were 
too  little,  even  in  time  of  peace.  They  sus 
pended  specie  payment  before  the  end  of 
1861,  while  the  public  treasury,  forced  to 
suspend  also,  early  in  1862,  faced  insolvency. 
In  February,  1862,  Congress  authorized  the 
issue  of  $150,000,000  legal  tender  notes  to 
replace  the  coin,  as  well  as  to  constitute  an 


200  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

indirect  loan.  In  lateracts,  the  "greenbacks," 
as  the  notes  were  called,  and  the  fractional 
notes,  or  "shinplasters,"  reached  a  total  of 
$458,000,000.  There  were  no  irregular  issues 
and  Congress  never  lost  control  of  its  paper 
money;  but  enough  was  floated  to  add  to  the 
derangement  of  the  currency,  and  to  inflict 
an  unfair  portion  of  the  cost  of  the  war  on 
those  least  able  to  bear  it. 

After  a  few  months,  the  greenbacks  fell 
below  par,  and  their  value  in  gold  became  a 
barometer  of  Union  hopes  and  fears.  At 
their  lowest,  in  the  summer  of  1864,  they 
dropped  to  thirty-nine  cents  on  the  dollar, 
but  generally  they  were  worth  from  sixty 
lo  eighty  cents  in  gold,  and  always  they 
remained  a  better  currency  than  the  Con 
federate  notes.  Their  fluctuations,  however, 
served  to  raise  prices,  and  to  increase  a 
burden  upon  wage  or  salary  earners  which 
traders  and  speculators  could  avoid.  Their 
necessity  will  always  be  debatable;  a  more 
honest  course  would  have  been  for  the 
treasury  to  shoulder  the  loss,  and  raise  public 
money  by  selling  United  States  bonds  at 
their  market  price. 

The  paper  money  was  a  small  fraction  of 
the  total  debt  of  $2,600,000,000  created  dur 
ing  the  Civil  War.  Four-fifths  of  the  ex 
penditures  were  met  by  borrowing,  and  the 
sale  of  bonds  was  the  constant  occupation 
of  the  treasury.  Chase  borrowed  from  the 
banks,  from  day  to  day,  during  much  of 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        201 

1861.  Later  he  appointed  scores  of  agents 
throughout  the  country  to  help  dispose  of 
bonds,  but  only  one  of  these  helped  him 
much.  This  one,  Jay  Cooke,  a  young  Phila 
delphia  banker,  became  the  principal  reliance 
of  the  treasury  as  the  war  progressed,  devis 
ing  means  of  distributing  the  bonds  quite 
as  picturesque  as  most  of  the  military  cam 
paigns,  and  much  more  effective. 

Jay  Cooke  rose  to  fame  by  selling  at  par 
$3,000,000  of  Pennsylvania  bonds  that  con 
servative  bankers  had  declared  unsaleable. 
Appointed  agent  by  the  governor  of  the  state, 
he  visited  banks  and  individuals,  appealed 
to  their  patriotism,  and  cheered  or  shamed 
them  into  contributions.  "I  took  care," 
he  said,  "to  have  this  patriotic  subscrip 
tion,  giving  the  names  and  amounts  of  all 
the  subscribers,  noticed  in  the  newspapers 
of  the  country."  He  sent  a  copy  of  the  list 
to  Jefferson  Davis  for  his  discouragement. 
Unlimited  enthusiasm,  coupled  with  a  shrewd 
regard  for  the  value  of  printers'  ink,  helped 
Cooke  in  his  task.  He  knew  that,  over  all  the 
country,  large  sums  of  coin  were  in  seclu 
sion,  in  old  stockings  or  strong  boxes,  waiting 
to  be  coaxed  out  by  the  person  who  could 
convince  the  owners  that  the  United  States 
was  safe.  He  sent  his  agents  everywhere, 
advertised  in  the  local  journals,  patronized 
the  religious  weeklies,  and  appealed  to  the 
loyalty  and  interest  of  the  small  investor. 
He  sent  ducks  and  wine,  from  his  Ohio 


202  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

home,  to  writers  of  financial  news.  He 
pledged  his  faith  that  the  government  was 
good.  His  biographer  tells  of  farmers  com 
ing  down  to  Philadelphia  to  pay  their  gold 
to  him  in  person.  Repeatedly,  his  competi 
tors  charged  favoritism,  for  he  was  close  to 
Chase,  and  was  a  backer  of  Senator  Sherman 
of  Ohio;  but  as  often  as  other  banking  houses 
tried  to  place  the  bonds,  Chase  overbid 
them,  and  made  better  bargains  for  the  gov 
ernment.  Without  his  zeal  in  popularizing 
investment  in  government  funds,  it  is  hard 
to  see  how  the  loans  of  the  Civil  War  could 
have  been  placed. 

No  efforts  of  Chase  or  Cooke,  no  bravery, 
no  loyalty  to  the  Union  could  have  given 
the  United  States  $3,300,000,000  to  spend 
in  four  years  if  the  nation  had  not  been 
sound,  financially.  Outnumbering  the  white 
population  of  the  Confederacy  four  to  one, 
there  was  even  greater  discrepancy  in  wealth. 
The  2,800,000  enlistments  from  the  North 
were  the  equivalent  of  1,500,000  men  serving 
for  three  years.  To  produce  this  number 
was  no  special  strain.  Nearly  a  third  of 
the  northern  troops  were  foreign-born,  and 
180,000  of  them  were  negroes,  enlisted  mostly 
in  the  South.  Few  families,  relatively,  were 
stranded  with  their  wage-earners  in  the 
ranks,  for  over  two  million  of  the  enlistments 
were  under  twenty-one,  more  than  a  million 
being  only  eighteen  years  of  age. 

At  the  beginning  of  1861  even  sanguine 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        203 

northerners  would  not  have  believed  a 
prophet  foretelling  the  story  of  the  next  four 
years.  The  panic  of  1857  still  depressed 
private  industry  and  produced  a  deficit  in 
the  national  treasury.  The  political  panic 
of  the  autumn  of  18GO,  caused  by  the  cessa 
tion  of  trade  between  the  sections,  further 
unsettled  business  conditions.  But  the  North 
andjVest,  as  Fite  has  clearly  shown,  were  on 
The  verge  of  a  financial  revival  that  all  would 
have  noticed  had  not  the  confusion  of  poli 
tics  concealed  it. 

States  had  been  built  up  solidly  to  the 
western  border  of  Missouri  before  the  war. 
Their  population  had  moved  in  under  the 
constant  incentive  of  cheap  and  fertile  lands, 
and  had  been  specially  stimulated  every 
time  a  financial  panic  depressed  the  East. 
After  the  panic  of  1857,  the  emigration  swelled 
once  more,  carrying  its  tide  into  the  North 
west.  Ohio  and  Indiana  had  been  the  great 
grain  fields  of  the  Union;  Illinois  and  Wis 
consin  now  took  their  place,  with  Iowa  and 
Missouri  pushing  up  behind,  and  Minne 
sota  coming  into  importance.  To  meet  the 
needs  of  this  newest  West,  Congress  revised 
the  land  laws  once  more.  It  passed  the 
homestead  law,  admitting  that  he  who  cleared 
a  farm  in  the  wilderness  was  a  public  bene 
factor,  and  giving  free  title  to  residents  who 
improved  and  cultivated  quarter  sections 
of  the  public  lands. 

Free  lands,  as  well  as  fertile,  turned  men 


204  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

to  the  agricultural  West  in  the  early  sixties, 
with  such  eagerness  that  tempting  bounties 
could  not  persuade  them  to  enlist.  The 
great  demand  of  Europe  for  American  wheat 
held  up  the  price.  Quick  fortunes  invited 
speculation,  and  agricultural  machinery  en 
larged  the  effectiveness  of  the  individual 
worker.  Science  in  agriculture  began  to 
ensure  his  crop  against  failure.  A  growing 
railway  mileage  brought  new  areas,  as  great 
and  rich  as  European  kingdoms,  within  the 
reach  of  hungry  markets. 

Two-thirds  of  all  the  American  railways 
in  1860  were  in  the  North  and  West,  and 
amounted  roughly  to  20,000  miles.  Their 
western  extremities  touched  the  Mississippi 
at  many  places,  and  had  reached  the  Mis 
souri  River  at  St.  Joseph.  To  these,  the  next 
ten  years  added  23,000  miles,  few  of  which 
were  built  within  the  South.  The  improve 
ment  in  service  rendered  by  the  larger  mile 
age  brought  independence  of  river  transpor 
tation  to  nearly  all  the  North.  When  the 
Mississippi  was  closed  to  navigation  early 
in  the  war,  the  Northwest  suffered;  but 
when  it  was  reopened  in  1863,  the  old  traffic 
would  not  return,  for  the  eastern  railroads 
had  come  to  serve  it  better.  Progress  toward 
a  standard  gage,  and  consolidation  of  the 
little  roads  of  the  early  railroad  era,  made 
shipments  cheaper  and  more  convenient. 
New  bridges  replaced  old  ferries,  while  many 
of  the  roads  began  to  build  themselves  double 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        205 

tracks,  and  to  think  in  terms  of  steel  instead 
of  iron. 

JSxpancling  manufactures  consumed  the 
increased  raw  products  of  the  farms.  Cin 
cinnati  lost  "forever  to  its  rival  on  the  Lakes 
the  proud  title  'Porkopolis  of  the  West.'" 
In  a  single  year,  Chicago  doubled  the  capa 
city  of  her  packing  houses,  and  before  the 
war  was  over  she  slaughtered  900,000  hogs 
and  90,000  cattle.  The  scarcity  of  cotton 
increased  the  use  of  wool,  bringing  heavier 
business  to  the  woollen  mills,  while  the 
revisions  of  the  tariff  helped  further  to  aug 
ment  the  profits  of  their  owners.  The  use 
of  elaborate  machines  became  more  common, 
making  possible  the  creation  of  shoe  and 
clothing  factories.  In  1865,  the  North  alone 
patented  more  inventions  than  the  whole 
United  States  had  produced  in  1860. 

Taxation  failed  even  to  check  the  indus 
trial  and  commercial  revival.  In  no  period 
before  the  war  had  the  North  worked  so 
hard,  or  laid  the  foundations  of  so  many 
new  interests.  With  an  enlarged  market 
created  by  the  railways  and  the  new 
telegraphs,  individuals  lost  some  of  their 
identity  and  became  merged  in  corporate  ex 
istence.  Boards  of  Trade  sprang  into  life  to 
promote  city  competition.  Stock  companies 
consolidated  individual  producers.  The  rail 
roads  merged  for  the  obvious  reasons  of 
larger  profits  and  improved  service.  The 
Western  Union  consolidated  scores  of  rival 


THE  CIVIL  WAR 

lines,  extended  its  wires  to  the  Pacific,  and 
divided  the  business  of  the  continent  with  the 
American  Telegraph  Company.  Uniformity 
and  standardization  of  national  life  could  not 
have  come  before  the  perfection  of  transpor 
tation  by  rail ;  it  was  forced  to  come  immedi 
ately  thereafter,  and  the  Civil  War  neither 
hastened  nor  retarded  its  advance. 

Lincoln,  at  Gettysburg,  had  spoken  of  the 
"new  nation"  of  1776.  In  a  truer  sense 
there  was  a  new  nation  coming  into  life 
through  the  industrial  expansion  after  the 
panic  of  1857.  Agriculture,  transportation, 
and  manufactures  tended  to  create  it;  while 
the  development  of  the  Far  West  gave  it 
the  width  of  the  continent  to  occupy. 

The  extension  of  agriculture  to  the  western 
border  of  Missouri  had  occurred  a  generation 
before  the  Civil  War.  To  the  west  of  this 
frontier,  the  Great  American  Desert,  as  it 
was  misnamed,  interposed  its  barrier,  half 
a  continent  in  width,  between  the  settle 
ments  and  the  Pacific.  Before  1857,  Cali 
fornia  and  Oregon  had  been  seen,  appreciated, 
and  settled,  but  the  intervening  plains  and 
mountains  remained  a  barrier  to  their  incor 
poration  in  the  national  life.  After  1857, 
even  this  region  began  to  yield  a  profit. 
The  discovery  of  gold  and  silver  in  many 
parts  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  began  in  1858, 
and  thereafter,  in  quick  succession,  hun 
dreds  of  mining  camps  sprang  into  life  to 
populate  the  desert,  and  reduce  the  unoc- 


THE  BALANCE  OF  POWER        207 

cupied  area  of  the  United  States.  New 
territories  were  called  for  and  granted,  and 
one  of  them  advanced  to  statehood  before 
the  war  was  over.  Colorado  and  Nevada 
represented  the  discoveries  in  the  Pike's 
Peak  and  Carson  Valley  regions;  prospectors 
along  Bill  Williams  Creek  created  Arizona; 
Idaho  and  Montana  were  the  response  to  the 
demands  of  miners  on  the  watersheds  of  the 
Missouri  and  Columbia.  Out  of  the  mines 
came  gold  to  replenish  the  dwindling  stock 
of  the  United  States.  Yet  more  significant, 
out  of  them  came  calls  for  government,  for 
transportation,  for  free  lands,  for  irrigation, 
for  national  activities,  which,  in  the  ensuing 
generation,  changed  the  character  of  the 
United  States.  East  or  west,  wherever  the 
presence  of  the  armies  did  not  cast  their 
blighting  shadow,  there  was  prosperity  such 
as  America  had  never  known  before  the 
Civil  War. 

Had  the  leaders  of  the  South  seen  the 
facts  that  are  visible  to-day,  there  could  have 
been  no  Civil  War.  The  struggle  to  which 
they,  waging  it  without  success,  gave  wealth 
and  lives  that  were  not  replaced  for  thirty 
years,  was  not  even  a  hindrance  to  the 
normal  development  of  the  rest  of  the 
Union.  But  they  had  misunderstood  their 
economic  foundations,  and  had  exaggerated 
the  importance  to  the  North  of  the  setback 
of  1857,  which  they  had  escaped.  The  supe 
rior  strength  of  the  North  might  have  been 


208  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ineffective,  even  with  the  co-operation  of 
its  improved  transportation,  if  the  South  had 
been  able  to  keep  open  its  European  connec 
tions.  It  was  the  cotton  crop  on  which  the 
Confederacy  staked  its  hope  of  success.  The 
effective  blockade  and  the  equally  effective 
diplomacy  of  the  Union  destroyed  this 
reliance.  In  a  prolonged  contest,  which 
could  call  forth  "the  last  full  measure  of 
devotion,"  the  superior  wealth  of  the  North 
had  time  to  act,  and  there  could  be  but  one 
outcome.  The  resources  of  the  South  failed 
first.  This  result,  visible  after  Gettysburg 
and  Vicksburg,  revealed  to  contemporaries 
the  fact  that  the  balance  of  power  was  with 
the  Union.  When  Grant  took  hold,  the  end 
was  only  a  matter  of  time,  if  the  Republican 
party  was  retained  in  power. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   UNION   PARTY 

THE  most  important  campaign  of  1864 
was  not  fought  by  any  of  the  armies  of  the 
United  States,  but  was  directed  by  Lincoln 
and  his  advisers  in  their  attempt  to  secure 
popular  approval  of  their  conduct  of  the  war. 
The  presidential  election  of  1864  was  affected 
by  all  oTthe  losses  and  successes  of  the  year. 
Grant's  movements  in  the  spring  played 
into  the  hands  of  those  critics  who  denounced 
the  war  as  a  failure;  Sherman's  victories  of 
the  autumn  were  needed  to  prove  the  oppo 
site.  Discarded  generals,  Fremont  and  Mc- 
Clellan,  with  political  friends  behind  them, 
made  trouble  both  within  the  Republican 
party  and  outside  it.  So  dubious  was  the 
outlook,  and  so  significant  its  importance, 
that  the  administration  dropped  the  name 
Republican  and,  appealing  to  the  principle 
of  loyalty  alone,  renamed  their  party  Union. 

Two  armies  held  the  approach  to  the  Con 
federacy  when  U.  S.  Grant  assumed  control 
in  the  spring  of  1864.  Lee,  on  the  right  bank 
of  the  Rapidan,  continued  to  stand  watch 
over  Richmond;  while  Johnston,  who  had 

209 


210  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

succeeded  Bragg,  faced  northwest  from  Dai- 
ton,  Georgia,  to  Chattanooga,  where  the 
forces  of  Sherman  and  Thomas  were  concen 
trated.  Between  Lee  and  Johnston  were  the 
railways  on  which  their  supplies  depended, 
and  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley  were  these 
supplies.  Detached  bands  of  cavalry  guarded 
their  connections. 

Facing  south,  in  a  long  curve  from  the 
capes  of  the  Chesapeake  to  the  Mississippi, 
were  nearly  twenty  Union  armies,  which  had 
never  acted  in  co-operation  before  1864. 
While  in  the  West,  Grant  wondered  why  there 
was  confusion  in  the  East.  The  answer, 
which  he  learned  in  a  few  days  at  Washing 
ton,  determined  him  to  leave  Sherman  in 
the  division  of  the  Mississippi,  and  take  the 
eastern  post  himself.  In  a  multitude  of 
counsels  there  had  been  destruction.  The 
armies  near  Washington  had  been  inspected 
and  criticized;  every  politician  from  Lin 
coln  down  had  become  an  amateur  strate 
gist,  and,  though  their  combined  wisdom  had 
contributed  no  important  plan,  they  had 
interfered  with  and  blocked  many  campaigns. 
"No  one  else  could,  probably,  resist  the 
pressure  that  would  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
him  to  desist  from  his  own  plans  and  pursue 
others,"  Grant  wrote  in  his  "Memoirs." 
He  still  had  to  learn  that,  while  political 
interference  had  been  vexatious,  there  was 
a  greater  obstacle  to  be  overcome,  —  Robert 
E.  Lee.  On  January  1,  1864,  there  were 


THE  UNION  PARTY  211 

860,000  men  on  the  Union  rolls,  481,000  on 
the  Confederate. 

Early  in  May,  the  long  Union  line  ad 
vanced.  Sherman,  on  the  right  with  the 
three  armies  of  the  Tennessee,  the  Cumber 
land,  and  the  Ohio,  curved  in  upon  northern 
Georgia.  Grant,  directing  the  left,  marched 
with  Meade  and  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
from  CuTpeper  upon  Richmond.  Butler, 
moving  up  the  James,  was  at  the  extreme 
Union  left;  while  in  the  Shenandoah  Valley 
and  the  Kanawha,  Sigel  and  Crook  completed 
the  connection  between  the  armies  of  the 
East  and  those  of  the  West.  It  was  a  grand 
concentric  movement  which  was  to  press  the 
life  out  of  the  Confederacy.  It  took  more 
men  than  the  defence,  because  northern 
opinion  would  not  allow  ground,  once  gained, 
to  be  given  up,  or  to  be  left  unguarded.  It 
relied  upon  the  superior  force  of  numbers, 
and  hopes  of  a  speedy  peace  ran  high. 

Not  all  the  generals  under  Grant  were 
able  to  keep  step  in  the  main  advance.  Sigel 
failed  ingloriously,  and  Butler  was  only 
partially  successful.  Grant  was  himself 
soon  involved  in  the  bloody  intricacies  of 
the  Wilderness  campaign. 

In  the  strip  of  country  south  of  the  Rapi- 
dan  and  north  of  the  James,  Grant  tried, 
from  May  5  to  June  12,  to  dislodge  or  crush 
Lee.  His  army  crossed  the  Rapidan  on  May 
4.  On  the  next  day,  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
Wilderness  Tavern,  only  a  few  miles  from 


THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Chancellorsville,  he  found  Lee  obstructing 
his  passage,  and  began  to  revise  his  judg 
ment  as  to  the  extent  of  the  resistance  which 
he  must  overcome.  It  cost  him  14,000 
troops  to  learn  that  he  could  not  push  his 
way  through  the  Confederate  army,  head  on. 

In  less  than  a  week,  Grant  was  fighting 
again.  This  time  he  tried  to  turn  Lee's 
flank,  shifting  his  own  front  until  it  faced  the 
Confederate  right  wing  at  Spottsylvania 
Court  House,  about  ten  miles  southeast  of 
the  Wilderness,  and  a  little  further  south 
west  of  Fredericksburg.  "But  Lee,  by  acci 
dent,  beat  us  to  Spottsylvania,"  he  later 
wrote.  An  intercepting  party  was  prevented 
by  a  forest  fire  from  bivouacking  on  the 
night  of  May  7,  and  so  made  an  unexpected 
forced  march,  establishing  itself  at  Spottsyl 
vania  before  the  Union  column  arrived.  For 
two  weeks,  Grant  tried  to  push  by  Lee  in  this 
position.  Twice  he  fought  severe  battles, 
losing  10,000  men.  "I  am  satisfied  the 
enemy  are  very  shaky,"  he  reported  to 
Halleck;  but  though  Grant's  storm  of  bul 
lets  cut  down  trees  in  the  forest,  Lee  refused 
to  be  dislodged.  On  May  20,  Grant  shifted 
still  further  to  his  left,  to  try  another  point. 

Cold  Harbor,  where  next  the  armies  met, 
is  a  cross-roads  less  than  fifteen  miles  north 
east  of  Richmond,  and  is  near  the  battle 
field  where  McClellan  struggled  during  the 
Seven  Days.  As  Grant  moved  toward  it, 
trying  to  get  around  Lee's  right,  Lee  moved 


THE  UNION  PARTY  213 

too;  but  on  the  last  day  of  May,  Sheridan 
seized  and  held  it.  Once  more  the  two 
armies  were  lined  up,  and  on  the  morning  of 
June  3,  Grant  tried  again  to  rush  Lee  off 
his  feet.  He  lost  12,000  men  without  dis 
lodging  the  enemy.  "This  assault  cost  us 
heavily,  and  was  probably  without  benefit 
to  compensate:  but  the  enemy  was  not 
cheered  by  4he  occurrence  sufficiently  to 
induce  him  to  take  the  offensive,"  was  all 
the  Union  leader  could  say  to  justify  the  loss 
of  life. 

After  waiting  at  Cold  Harbor  for  a  week 
following  the  battle,  Grant  gave  up  as  use 
less  his  first  plan  of  action.  In  three  great 
engagements  he  had  gained  no  permanent 
advantage  beyond  that  of  reducing  the  num 
ber  of  the  enemy.  He  could  replace  his  dead 
and  wounded  with  fresh  men;  every  man 
now  lost  to  the  Confederate  army  meant  a 
permanent  diminution  of  its  strength.  But 
Lee  had  given  him  stalemate,  as  Dodge  says. 
Grant's  next  device  was  begun  at  once. 
Boats  were  collected  in  the  James  River, 
while  he  began  to  shift  his  army  from  right 
to  left,  with  the  idea  of  crossing  to  the  south 
bank  of  the  James,  and  advancing  on  Rich 
mond  by  way  of  Petersburg.  Butler  was 
already  there,  and  the  two  armies  were  side 
by  side  on  June  15.  The  chance  to  occupy 
Petersburg  was  missed,  however,  and  until  it 
was  taken  Richmond  was  safe.  It  lay  twenty 
miles  due  south  of  Richmond,  on  the  Appo- 


214  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

mattox,  and  was  so  fortified  that  a  formal 
siege  alone  could  reduce  it.  This  Grant  un 
dertook  in  June,  at  the  time  when  he  and 
Lincoln  had  hoped  that  the  long  fight  with 
Lee  would  have  been  over. 

While  Grant  was  in  the  Wilderness,  Lin 
coln's  political  future  was  threatened  by 
either  his  success  or  his  defeat.  In  the  latter 
event,  the  election  of  a  Democrat  in  the 
autumn  was  the  least  of  the  dangers  to  be 
feared;  while  if  Grant  should  destroy  Lee 
it  was  not  improbable  that  his  name  would 
carry  the  Republican  convention  off  its 
feet,  and  make  him  President.  No  one  knew 
his  politics,  but  if  he  had  taken  Richmond, 
no  one  would  greatly  have  cared.  In  the 
dark  days  of  May  and  June,  with  the  news 
papers  printing  sheets  of  dead,  as  their 
names  came  in  by  thousands,  the  critics  of 
the  administration  found  many  to  listen  to 
them. 

Within  the  Republican  party  there  were 
groups  discontented  for  opposite  reasons, — 
because  Lincoln  was  a  tyrant,  and  because 
he  was  too  rarely  rigorous.  He  had  failed 
to  push  the  war,  declared  the  latter  group, 
and  had  removed  able  generals,  Fremont 
for  instance,  for  political  reasons.  His  re 
construction  proclamation  of  1863  was  too 
lenient  to  "rebels,"  and  showed  the  weakness 
of  despair,  rather  than  the  generosity  of  the 
strong.  At  the  other  end  of  the  party  from 
these,  were  honest  Republicans  who  approved 


THE  UNION  PARTY  215 

the  war,  but  could  not  stand  for  all  its 
incidents,  who  regretted  the  emancipation 
proclamation  as  showing  a  disposition  to 
overstep  the  Constitution,  who  opposed  the 
rigor  with  which  criticism  at  the  north  was 
silenced  by  the  strong  hand  of  the  army  in 
defiance  of  the  right  of  free  speech  and  press. 

The  conservative  Republicans  found  a 
leader  in  Chase,  who  was  willing,  though 
sitting  in  the  cabinet,  to  let  himself  be  pushed 
for  President  against  his  chief.  Querulous, 
and  critical  of  Lincoln  in  small  matters,  he 
resigned  twice,  and  each  time  allowed  him 
self  to  be  persuaded  back.  Greeley  took  him 
up  for  the  presidential  nomination,  and  in 
February,  1864,  his  friends  put  out  a  cir 
cular  which  advertised  his  strong  points  and 
Lincoln's  unfitness.  The  matter  was  ex 
plained  away,  and  Chase  remained  at  the 
treasury;  but  when,  in  June,  he  resigned 
again,  in  another  pet,  Lincoln  took  him  at 
his  word,  to  his  surprise. 

Fremont  was  the  choice  of  the  radical 
Republicans,  who  tried  to  force  his  nomin 
ation  by  holding  a  preliminary  convention 
of  their  own,  at  Cleveland,  at  the  end  of 
May.  Their  call  denounced  the  "imbecile 
and  vacillating"  policy  of  Lincoln,  and  hoped 
to  induce  all  the  abolitionists  to  take  up 
Fremont.  When  the  President  heard  the 
details  of  the  convention,  he  turned  to  his 
familiar  Bible,  and  read  to  his  secretaries 
I  Samuel  xxn,  2:  "And  every  one  that 


216  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

was  in  distress,  and  every  one  that  was  in 
debt,  and  every  one  that  was  discontented, 
gathered  themselves  unto  him;  and  he  be 
came  a  captain  over  them:  and  there  were 
with  him  about  four  hundred  men."  Before 
the  election,  even  Fremont  saw  that  he  had 
no  followers,  and  dropped  out  of  the  canvass. 

The  Republican  party,  convening  at  Bal 
timore,  in  June,  asked  no  embarrassing  ques 
tions  of  any  persons  who  chose  to  join  with 
them.  "We  pledge  ourselves  as  Union  men 
...  to  do  everything  in  our  power  to  aid 
the  government,"  their  platform  read.  The 
minor  movements,  save  that  of  Fremont, 
had  run  their  course,  and  Lincoln's  was  the 
only  name  considered  for  the  nomination. 
For  vice-president  there  were  various  candi 
dates,  including  Hamlin,  already  in  office. 
The  party  proved  its  Union  character  by 
passing  over  Hamlin,  and  selecting  the  most 
notable  war  Democrat  in  the  United  States, 
Andrew  Johnson,  whose  career  in  Tennessee 
had  done  much  to  break  down  distinctions 
between  defenders  of  the  Union.  From  the 
standpoint  of  reconstruction,  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  if  Tennessee  was  not  a  state, 
Johnson  was  ineligible  as  a  candidate. 

More  serious  than  the  opposition  within 
his  party,  was  the  Democratic  attack  upon 
Lincoln.  The  mildest  of  its  weapons  was  tEe 
assertion  that  the  war  was  a  failure;  that 
peace,  with  Union,  was  within  Lincoln's 
reach  if  he  chose  to  take  it.  It  ought  to  have 


THE  UNION  PARTY  217 

been  entirely  clear,  to  men  of  honesty  and 
reasonable  information,  that  the  one  thing 
which  Lincoln  demanded,  Union,  was  the 
sole  condition  which  the  Confederacy  would 
not  yield;  that  only  conquest  could  break 
down  the  devotion  of  the  South  to  inde 
pendence.  Yet  Democrats  persuaded  them 
selves  of  the  opposite.  They  declared  that 
Davis  wanted  peace,  and  the  erratic  Greeley 
was  convinced  of  this  in  1864.  The  asser 
tion  lost  its  effectiveness  when  Lincoln  drew 
the  charge,  sending  Greeley  to  Canada  to 
treat  with  any  one  who  thought  he  could 
end  the  war  and  save  the  Union.  After  this 
errand,  Greeley  ceased  to  talk  of  peace. 

Tyranny,  and  conspiracy  to  override  the 
Constitution,  were  more  serious  charges  in 
the  mouth  of  the  opposition,  because  they 
had  numerous  believers  among  the  Repub 
licans,  as  well.  The  United  States  had  never 
encountered  cases  of  treason  and  sedition  on 
a  large  scale,  and  had  had  no  experience  in 
handling  them.  The  Confederacy  was  to 
all  intents  a  military  dictatorship;  in  the 
Union  the  government  had  the  Constitution 
always  to  consider.  Under  the  Constitution, 
it  was  extremely  difficult  to  convict  of  treason. 
There  were  no  precedents  to  show  how  far 
the  minority,  in  time  of  war,  was  to  be  al 
lowed  to  obstruct  the  national  purpose.  Yet 
now,  the  minority  showed  its  sympathy  with 
the  South  by  opposing  war  measures,  by 
denouncing  acts  of  government  as  illegal,  and 


218  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

by  giving  secret  aid  directly  to  the  Con 
federacy.  At  times  it  seemed  as  though 
Democratic  resistance  would  tie  the  hands 
of  Lincoln,  and  let  the  Union  be  broken. 

Lincoln  faced  his  opponents  in  the  rear 
more  boldly  than  even  his  adherents  always 
approved.  Early  in  the  war,  he  suspended 
the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in 
the  North,  on  his  own  authority,  in  order 
that  arrests  that  appeared  necessary  to  him 
might  not  be  nullified  by  the  courts.  The 
Constitution  declares  that  "The  Privilege 
of  the  Writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  shall  not  be 
suspended,  unless  when  in  Cases  of  Rebellion 
or  Invasion  the  public  Safety  may  require 
it."  But  it  does  not  say  who  shall  suspend 
the  writ.  Lincoln  took  the  responsibility 
as  his  own,  and  though  Congress  regarded 
the  act  as  an  usurpation  of  its  own  authority, 
it  passed,  in  1863,  a  law  indemnifying  him 
in  case  he  had  violated  the  Constitution,  and 
enacted  general  rules  for  the  suspension  in 
the  future.  Lincoln  disregarded  these  rules 
when  he  believed  it  expedient. 

There  are  no  exact  figures  to  show  how 
many  persons  were  arrested  arbitrarily  in 
the  North  during  the  crises  of  the  war.  The 
number  ran  into  the  thousands,  and  was 
increased  by  unauthorized  acts  of  zealous 
subordinates  and  military  commanders. 
Every  conspiracy  that  was  discovered,  or 
secret  society  that  was  brought  to  light, 
seemed  to  the  department  commander  on 


THE  UNION  PARTY  219 

the  ground  to  need  repression.  The  aggre 
gate  number  of  conspirators  was  large.  Most 
numerous  in  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Ohio, 
they  affected  ritualistic  organization,  and 
drilled  in  secret,  when  they  could.  Their 
very  numbers  drew  their  teeth.  So  many 
Union  spies  were  in  their  ranks  that  Lin 
coln  knew  their  plans  as  soon  as  they  were 
formulated.  They  never  had  a  close  organ 
ization,  or  were  more  than  an  aggravating 
nuisance.  Their  most  serious  influence  was 
in  slandering  the  public  credit,  dissuading 
enlistment,  and  encouraging  desertion.  The 
draft  might  not  have  been  necessary  but 
for  them.  More  than  2500  deserters  were 
returned  to  the  ranks  from  Indianapolis, 
alone,  in  a  single  month  in  1862.  When  the 
President  was  called  upon  to  sign  death 
warrants  for  desertion,  he  generally  declined 
the  duty.  Only  141  men  were  shot  or  hung 
for  this  crime  throughout  the  war,  and 
leniency  increased  the  trouble.  But  Lin 
coln  made  the  excuse  that  has  been  more 
satisfactory  to  his  fellow  citizens  than  it  was 
to  the  disciplinarians  of  the  war  department: 
"Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier 
boy  who  deserts,  while  I  must  not  touch  a 
hair  of  a  wily  agitator  who  induces  him  to 
desert?  ...  I  think  that  in  such  a  case, 
to  silence  the  agitator,  and  save  the  boy,  is 
not  only  constitutional,  but  withal  a  great 
mercy." 

The  most  famous  arbitrary  arrest  was  that 


220  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

of  Clement  L.  Vallandigham,  an  Ohio  law 
yer  and  journalist,  who  had  represented 
his  district  in  Congress  since  1857.  From 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  Vallandigham 
denounced  the  usurpation  of  power  by  the 
President,  and  the  wickedness  of  coercion. 
A  brilliant  speaker,  with  handsome  figure 
and  great  courage,  he  led  the  most  violent 
wing  of  the  opposition.  The  term  "copper 
heads,"  which  was  bestowed  upon  his  fol 
lowers  in  reproach,  they  finally  accepted 
with  pride,  and  they  wore  the  liberty-head, 
cut  from  the  old  copper  cent,  as  an  emblematic 
badge.  "I  am  for  peace,"  declared  Vallan 
digham.  He  protested  against  "an  aggres 
sive  and  invasive  warfare;"  but  denied  his 
desire  to  extend  aid  to  the  Confederacy. 
When  Wade  called  him  a  traitor,  he  denied 
the  charge  and  called  its  author  "a  liar,  a 
scoundrel,  and  a  coward."  Through  1862, 
he  fought  the  administration  steadfastly.  In 
the  fall  of  that  year,  he  lost  his  seat  in 
Congress  through  a  rearrangement  of  his 
district;  but  the  military  failures  of  the 
year,  and  the  rebuke  to  Lincoln  at  the  polls, 
encouraged  him  and  others  to  keep  up  their 
opposition,  and  their  assertions  that  peace, 
with  Union,  was  within  the  reach  of  an 
honest  administration. 

In  May,  1863,  Vallandigham  was  arrested 
at  his  home  in  Dayton,  by  order  of  the  mili 
tary  governor  commanding  in  Ohio,  A.  E. 
Burnside.  The  latter  had  recently  drawn 


THE  UNION  PARTY  221 

the  fire  of  the  copperheads  by  proclaiming  in 
a  general  order  that  "Treason,  expressed  or 
implied,  will  not  be  tolerated  in  this  depart 
ment."  Vallandigham  had  led  in  denouncing 
the  order.  He  was  arrested  by  troops,  denied 
a  hearing  on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  by  the 
United  States  court,  tried  before  a  military 
tribunal  at  Cincinnati,  and  condemned  to 
imprisonment.  His  alleged  crime  had  been 
committed  in  a  state  where  ordinary  courts 
were  in  regular  session.  The  utterances  on 
which  he  was  condemned  were  highly  parti 
san,  but  by  no  means  traitorous.  The 
action  of  the  administration  in  his  case, 
declared  the  Democratic  governor  of  New 
York,  Horatio  Seymour,  "will  determine  in 
the  minds  of  more  than  one-half  of  the 
people  of  the  loyal  States,  whether  this  war 
is  waged  to  put  down  rebellion  at  the  South, 
or  to  destroy  free  institutions  at  the  North." 
Although  he  doubted  the  wisdom  of  the 
arrest  of  Vallandigham,  Lincoln  did  not 
disallow  the  verdict  in  his  trial.  He  whim 
sically  commuted  the  sentence  from  confine 
ment  to  banishment  within  the  Confederate 
lines,  and  ordered  Vallandigham  to  be 
escorted  thither  under  guard.  Protesting 
all  the  way,  and  seeing  none  of  the  humor 
of  the  situation,  the  leader  of  the  copper 
heads  was  taken  by  way  of  Murfreesboro  to 
the  front,  and  abandoned,  under  a  flag  of  truce, 
within  the  outer  line  of  Confederate  pickets. 
The  case  of  Vallandigham  marks  the  height 


THE  CIVIL  WAR 

and  decline  of  the  activities  of  the  copper 
heads.  The  disastrous  year,  1862,  convinced 
many  that  it  was  safe  to  fight  the  Union,  and 
that  Lincoln  was  tottering.  It  emboldened 
many  to  a  freedom  of  speech  that  would  have 
passed  unnoticed  in  time  of  peace,  but  which 
now  provoked  the  administration  to  a  method 
of  defence  that  sober  lawyers  have  been 
reluctant  to  justify.  If,  however,  the  Con 
stitution  had  been  allowed  to  fall  because  of 
its  own  restrictions  upon  the  freedom  of  its 
defenders,  it  would  have  been  a  sad  commen 
tary  upon  the  effectiveness  of  popular  govern 
ment. 

Vallandigham  in  exile  was  more  effective 
i  than  Vallandigham  at  large.  He  left  the 
Confederacy,  and  took  up  a  residence  at 
Windsor,  in  Ontario.  His  party  nominated 
him  for  governor  of  Ohio  in  1863,  and  he 
conducted  his  campaign  from  Canadian 
territory.  The  administration  threw  its 
whole  influence  into  the  campaign  to  defeat 
him,  and  both  Unionists  and  copperheads 
were  surprised  when  the  final  vote  brought 
out  a  majority  of  more  than  100,000  for  his 
opponent.  On  the  whole,  the  best  antidote 
for  the  teachings  of  the  copperheads  was 
their  own  speech  and  actions.  Vallandigham 
was  released  from  his  pose  of  martyr  after 
the  election,  and  was  permitted  to  come  home, 
unnoticed  by  the  government. 

When  the  Democratic  national  conven 
tion  met  at  Chicago,  in  1864,  the  spirit  of 


THE  UNION  PARTY  223 

Vallandigham,  who  was  a  leading  delegate, 
wrote  the  platform.  It  denounced  the  war 
as  a  failure  and  as  unnecessary.  It  denounced, 
also,  the  violation  of  constitutional  rights 
in  the  North;  but  it  nominated  for  its  can 
didate  General  McClellan,  whose  letter  of 
acceptance  repudiated  the  most  extreme 
charge,  and  pledged  him  to  a  vigorous  pros 
ecution  of  the  war.  The  party  went  before 
the  country  with  a  platform  designed  to  win 
votes  from  copperheads,  and  a  candidate  to 
win  the  support  of  loyal  Democrats  and 
critical  Republicans.  The  lack  of  Union 
success  in  the  fighting  of  the  year  brought 
the  President  to  the  extreme  of  discourage 
ment,  which  he  recorded  in  a  memorandum 
on  August  23,  "  .  .  .it  seems  exceedingly 
probable  that  this  administration  will  not  be 
re-elected."  Ten  days  later  his  gloom  was 
gone.  On  September  3,  he  proclaimed  a  day 
for  national  thanksgiving,  while  Seward 
was  able  to  declare  from  the  stump  that 
"Sherman  and  Farragut  have  knocked  the 
bottom  out  of  the  Chicago  nominations." 

Sherman  had  begun  to  move  in  1864 
when  Grant's  long  line  had  started  its  crush 
ing  process  on  the  Confederacy.  His  chief 
had  kept  fighting  away  through  spring  and 
summer,  without  making  large  gains.  Grant 
had  differed  from  Meade,  and  Hooker,  and 
Burnside,  and  McClellan,  mainly  in  his 
control  of  northern  opinion  and  his  elasticity, 
which  sent  him  repeatedly  against  the  enemy. 


224  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

There  were  no  breathing  spells  in  his  cam 
paign,  but  there  were  no  distinctive  victories. 
Sherman,  on  the  other  hand,  continued  the 
steady  progress  that  Grant  had  begun  at 
Cairo.  "That  we  are  now  all  to  act  on  a 
common  plan,  converging  on  a  common 
centre,"  he  wrote  to  Grant,  "looks  like 
enlightened  war." 

On  May  5,  as  ordered,  Sherman  put  his 
three  armies  in  motion,  about  110,000  strong, 
in  a  front  twenty  miles  long,  under  Schofield, 
Thomas,  and  McPherson.  There  was  only 
one  way  for  him  to  advance  into  Georgia; 
this  was  along  the  line  of  the  Western  and 
Atlantic  Railroad,  running  southeast/  from 
Chattanooga  to  Atlanta,  about  one  hundred 
and  ten  miles  distant.  He  had  prepared 
with  care  for  his  march,  realizing  that  as  his 
line  of  communications  became  longer  his 
danger  would  increase.  When  his  quarter 
master  at  Nashville,  his  chief  base,  com 
plained  that  he  had  too  little  rolling  stock  to 
haul  one  hundred  and  thirty  carloads  of 
food  a  day,  he  ordered  him  to  seize,  hold,  and 
use,  all  cars  and  locomotives  arriving  from 
Louisville.  When  the  president  of  the 
Louisville  and  Nashville  Railroad  remon 
strated  with  him,  on  account  of  this,  he  told 
him  to  start  a  car  ferry,  and  annex  the  rolling 
stock  coming  into  Jeffersonville,  Indiana, 
across  the  Ohio  from  Louisville.  With  this 
mongrel  equipment,  impressed  as  needed, 
he  secured  his  food. 


THE  UNION  PARTY  225 

Johnston,  opposing  Sherman,  and  defend 
ing  every  inch  of  the  way,  knew  better  than 
to  fight  except  when  he  was  sure  to  win. 
His  losses  could  not  be  replaced,  and  he 
started  with  only  66,000  men.  Until  the  last 
week  in  July,  the  campaign  was  a  series  of 
patient  manoeuvres,  of  repeated  entrenching 
of  positions,  and  of  heavy  engagements, 
while  Johnston  gradually  retired  upon  At 
lanta.  Every  day  that  he  delayed,  increased 
the  chance  of  a  happy  accident  that  might 
let  him  destroy  Sherman;  a  defeat  for  him 
self  would  open  the  road  into  Atlanta  in  a 
single  afternoon. 

The  Western  and  Atlantic  Railroad,  along 
which  Sherman  moved,  winds  a  sinuous 
course  through  the  mountains,  from  the  Ten 
nessee  River  to  Atlanta.  It  ascends  the 
valley  of  the  Chickamauga  River  for  about 
fifteen  miles,  then  plunges  across  country, 
bridging  the  Etowah  River,  just  north  of 
Allatoona,  and  the  Chattahoochee,  a  few 
miles  before  it  enters  Atlanta.  Johnston, 
when  the  movement  started,  was  at  Dalton, 
thirty-odd  miles  from  Chattanooga.  He 
was  manoeuvred  out  of  this  position,  and 
out  of  Resaca,  fifteen  miles  further  south. 
The  Union  and  Confederate  outposts  were 
tapping  everywhere,  but  there  was  no  deci 
sive  engagement  until  Johnston  had  retired 
behind  the  line  of  the  Etowah,  thirty-five 
miles  from  Atlanta. 

Between    the    Etowah    and    the    Chatta- 


226  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

hoochee,  there  was  fighting  during  June. 
Sherman's  men  were  gaining  in  confidence 
every  week.  They  were  now  some  eighty 
miles  from  Chattanooga,  and  nothing  had 
happened  to  them.  Every  few  days,  Con 
federate  cavalry  broke  their  railway,  but 
Union  repair  gangs,  with  wrecking  trains, 
had  the  gaps  rebuilt  almost  before  the  raiders' 
hoof -prints  had  hardened  in  the  mud.  Their 
numbers  were  shrinking,  as  garrisons  were 
posted  to  hold  the  line,  but  there  were  some 
new  recruits  and  a  consciousness  that  John 
ston  was  losing  more  than  they.  For  the 
last  two  weeks  in  June,  there  were  numerous 
engagements  in  the  vicinity  of  Marietta, 
Kenesaw  Mountain,  a  victory  for  Johnston 
being  the  most  notable.  But  whether  John 
ston  won  or  not,  Sherman's  constant  pressure 
kept  him  always  retiring  to  the  new  earth 
works  which  his  gangs  of  slaves  were  ever 
throwing  up  for  him  in  his  rear. 

About  July  1,  Johnston  was  at  the  line  of 
the  Chattahoochee,  the  last  he  could  hold 
before  he  retired  into  the  entrenchments  of 
Atlanta.  Here,  as  before,  Sherman's  supe 
rior  strength  drove  him  away.  Occupying  the 
Confederate  attention  with  troops  at  the 
centre  of  the  line,  the  Union  forces  massed 
other  troops  opposite  Johnston's  right  wing, 
and,  threatening  to  destroy  it,  compelled  the 
whole  to  yield.  By  July  9,  Johnston  fell 
back  behind  the  Chattahoochee;  a  few  days 
later,  Sherman  crossed  the  river;  yet  a  few 


THE  UNION  PARTY  227 

days,  and  Davis  removed  Johnston  from 
command,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  failed 
to  check  the  Union  advance.  Hood  suc 
ceeded  him  with  a  fighting  policy,  instead 
of  one  of  obstruction  and  delay.  Since 
Sherman  had  been,  for  two  months,  vainly 
trying  to  induce  Johnston  to  fight,  the  change 
of  command  was  a  relief  to  him. 

By  the  end  of  July,  after  battles  at  Peach 
Tree  Creek,  Atlanta,  and  Ezra  Church,  in 
which  Hood  gained  no  advantage  to  offset 
his  heavy  losses,  Atlanta  became  the  centre 
of  the  Confederate  defence,  while  Sherman 
partially  surrounded  and  invested  it.  The 
fate  of  Vicksburg  might  have  been  repeated 
here,  had  not  Hood  saved  his  army  by 
decamping  on  September  2.  The  slow  and 
sedate  Thomas,  when  he  heard  the  news, 
says  Sherman,  "snapped  his  fingers,  whistled, 
and  almost  danced." 

The  importance  of  Atlanta  to  the  Con-  ^AJ 
federacy  could  hardly  be  overestimated. 
It  was  the  only  one  of  the  better  cities  of  the 
South  that  had  not  been  endangered  or 
disturbed  by  war,  before  1864.  Here  the 
Confederate  government  had  established 
cloth  mills  and  uniform  factories.  Cotton 
was  stored  here  in  large  quantities.  Remote 
from  what  was  regarded  as  possible  Union 
attack,  it  was  developed  into  the  industrial, 
centre  of  the  seceding  states.  Sherman  pro 
posed  to  end  this,  and  leave  Atlanta,  when 
the  time  came  to  go  off  on  other  business, 


228  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

useless  as  an  agency  of  the  Confederacy. 
On  September  7,  he  notified  Hood  that  all 
non-combatants  residing  there  would  be 
furnished  transportation  to  the  Confederate 
lines.  No  one  was  to  be  left  to  require  a 
holding  garrison;  factories  and  public  stores 
were  to  be  destroyed.  "If  the  people  raise 
a  howl  against  my  barbarity  and  cruelty," 
he  wrote  to  Halleck,  "I  will  answer  that  war 
is  war,  and  not  popularity-seeking.  If  they 
want  peace,  they  and  their  relatives  must 
stop  the  war."  The  acrimonious  discussion 
that  Hood  started  against  this  step  has  not 
yet  subsided,  though  military  experts  are 
disposed  to  believe  that  the  measure  was 
entirely  justifiable.  Georgia  and  the  Shenan- 
doah  Valley  fed  and  clothed  the  armies  of 
the  Confederacy,  yet  the  former  had  not 
seen  war  within  her  boundaries;  she  was  now 
to  learn,  as  Sherman  wrote  to  Hood,  that 
"War  is  cruelty." 

The  news  of  the  fall  of  Atlanta,  coming 
after  long  discouragement  over  Petersburg, 
and  after  grave  doubts  whether  Sherman  was 
not  himself  to  be  lost,  gave  new  heart  to  the 
administration,  and  probably  re-elected  Lin 
coln.  Two  other  notable  events  of  the 
autumn  re-enforced  it,  and  destroyed  Mc- 
Clellan's  hope  of  gaining  the  election  on  a 
platform  denouncing  the  Union  armies  as 
without  success. 

All  through  the  war,  the  navy  was  on  sta 
tion,  off  the  blockaded  ports,  doing  tedious 


THE  UNION  PARTY  229 

patrol  duty  that  was  enlivened  only  by  the 
occasional  chase  of  a  blockade-runner,  or 
brush  with  a  privateer.  One  by  one,  most 
of  the  ports  were  taken  and  held,  and  the 
Confederate  fleet  afloat,  always  small,  was 
gradually  reduced.  The  notorious  Alabama 
was  caught  off  Cherbourg,  on  the  coast  of 
France,  and  sunk  by  the  Kearsarge,  after  a 
striking  naval  duel.  In  August  Farragut 
entered  the  harbor  of  Mobile,  which  was  the 
last  important  Gulf  port  left  to  the  Con 
federacy,  and  won  a  victory  that  Lincoln 
coupled  with  the  taking  of  Atlanta  in  his 
proclamation  of  thanksgiving. 

In  the  eastern  field  of  the  war,  encourage 
ment  came  as  the  presidential  campaign 
advanced.  While  Grant  was  embedded  before 
Petersburg,  Lee  tried  once  more  the  trick 
that  had  turned  off  McClellan's  peninsular 
attack,  and  had  frightened  the  North  in  two 
invasions.  He  sent  Early  into  the  Shenan- 
doah  Valley,  where  that  general  again  scared 
the  national  capital,  but  lost  his  chance  to 
take  it.  He  remained  there  through  July 
and  August,  threatening  the  North,  while 
his  cavalry  raided  Maryland  and  burned 
Chambersburg,  in  Pennsylvania.  No  one 
seemed  able  to  check  him,  until  Grant  deter 
mined,  once  for  all,  to  end  the  annoyance 
which  had  so  often  come  by  way  of  the 
Shenandoah  Valley. 

Sheridan  was  detached  from  the  A^my  of 
the  Potomac  in  August,  and  sent  into  the 


230  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Valley  with  a  generous  army.  He  ma 
noeuvred  carefully  against  Early,  until  in 
September,  Grant  allowed  him  to  take  the 
aggressive.  On  September  19  he  fought  Early 
at  Winchester;  three  days  later  they  met  at 
Fisher's  Hill;  and  on  October  19  the  battle 
of  Cedar  Creek  "finished  forever  the  Valley 
campaigns."  Here  it  was  that  Sheridan 
made  the  ride  that  every  schoolboy  knows. 
He  had  driven  the  Confederate  army  out  of 
the  Valley,  had  carried  off  what  military 
supplies  he  could  use,  and  had  burned  the 
rest.  Barns  and  mills  went  up  in  smoke, 
until  the  most  fertile  farms  of  the  Con 
federacy  were  devastated,  and  Lee  was 
permanently  deprived  of  one  of  his  chief 
resources. 

After  September  1,  the  prospects  of  Lin 
coln  brightened.  His  friends  gained  courage 
to  reiterate  their  charges  that  McClellan's 
election  would  mean  restoration  of  slavery 
and  division  of  the  Union.  The  President, 
discouraged  at  times,  continued  evenly  on 
the  course  he  had  mapped  out.  He  alienated 
Republican  radicals  by  refusing  their  vin 
dictive  measures  of  reconstruction,  he  main 
tained  the  draft,  he  did  not,  for  fear  of 
Democratic  votes,  weaken  his  efforts  to  sup 
port  Grant.  In  November  he  was  elected  for 
a  second  time,  by  a  plurality  that  showed 
how  many  of  his  fellow  citizens  were  not 
satisfied;  2,200,000  votes  were  cast  among 
the  states  for  him,  1,802,000  for  McClellan. 


THE  UNION  PARTY  231 

Neither  elation  nor  despondency  changed 
his  pace.  The  war,  in  his  mind,  was  essen 
tial,  but  the  problems  after  peace  were  to 
be  quite  as  great.  Joy  at  the  prospect  of 
victory  was  tempered  by  sympathy  for  the 
citizens  for  whom  his  victory  would  mean 
grief  and  destruction.  Some  had  professed 
to  see  in  him  a  dictator  and  a  tyrant.  His 
tory  has  found  him  the  opposite,  pursuing 
his  way  "with  malice  toward  none,  with 
charity  for  all,  with  firmness  in  the  right,  as 
God  gives  us  to  see  the  right." 


CHAPTER  XH 

THE   CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE 

THE  end  of  the  war  was  in  sight  when 
Lincoln  was  re-elected,  and  when  he  was 
inaugurated  for  the  second  time,  the  exact 
manner  of  the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy 
was  the  only  uncertainty.  The  war  in  the 
East  had  become  an  actual  siege  of  Rich 
mond,  with  only  one  termination  possible. 
In  the  West,  the  armies  were  still  advancing, 
and  were  to  continue  their  progress  until  Lee 
and  Johnston  should  be  seized,  as  it  were  by 
a  gigantic  pair  of  tongs,  Grant  on  one  claw, 
Sherman  on  the  other.  The  winter  of  1864- 
1865  did  not  interfere  with  the  Union  cam 
paigns.  It  had  taken  Grant  longer  than  he 
thought  to  "fight  it  out,"  but  he  would  neither 
yield  to  discouragement  nor  relax  his  grip. 
One  of  his  officers  brought  a  spotted  coach- 
dog  into  camp,  promising  to  take  it  into 
Richmond,  because  "It  is  said  to  come  from 
a  long-lived  breed."  Continuous  hammering 
until  the  last  resistance  was  crushed  had 
become  the  Union  policy. 

Sherman  did  not  remain  long  inactive 
in  the  fall  of  1864.  He  knew  that  "an  army 

232 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE      233 

which  had  penetrated  Georgia  as  far  as 
Atlanta  could  not  turn  back,"  and,  early 
in  October,  was  begging  Grant  to  let  him 
send  away  his  baggage,  destroy  the  railroad 
in  his  rear,  and  strike  out  across  country 
for  Milledgeville  and  Savannah.  "I  can 
make  this  march,  and  make  Georgia  howl! " 
he  wrote.  He  could  both  transfer  his  army  to 
the  coast,  where  it  could  operate  in  connec 
tion  with  the  fleet  and  the  eastern  armies, 
and  strike  a  blow  at  the  resources  of  the  Con 
federacy  which  would  discourage  it.  The 
sooner  every  southerner  was  taught  that 
the  war  could  not  succeed,  and  that  its  con 
tinuance  meant  personal  ruin,  as  well  as 
ultimate  defeat,  the  sooner  Lee  and  John 
ston's  armies  would  melt  away.  For  nearly 
a  month  Grant  withheld  his  positive  per 
mission  for  the  raid.  He  had  had  his  mind 
set  on  Mobile  for  the  next  move.  Sherman 
insisted  that  there  was  no  enemy  between 
him  and  the  sea;  but  the  rules  of  strategy 
have  only  criticism  for  a  commander  who 
abandons  his  base  in  the  enemy's  country, 
and  marches  away  from  the  hostile  army 
instead  of  toward  it. 

The  effect  which  this  movement  would 
have  on  the  future  of  Atlanta,  Chattanooga, 
and  Nashville  was  considered  before  Sherman 
was  allowed  to  start.  Hood  was  already 
worrying  the  railroad,  and  Thomas  had  been 
sent  back  to  Nashville,  while  the  troops  were 
distributed  along  the  railroad  behind  Atlanta. 


234  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

By  the  end  of  October  it  was  seen  that  Hood 
was  after  Thomas,  in  the  attempt  to  ruin 
Sherman  by  destroying  his  base.  Sherman 
saw  the  time  had  come  to  let  the  base  go, 
leave  Hood  in  Thomas's  hands,  and  start  for 
the  coast.  On  November  2,  Grant  gave  his 
definite  assent,  and  Sherman  began  to  strip 
his  force.  The  baggage,  the  sick,  and  the 
lukewarm  were  sent  back  to  Chattanooga 
or  Nashville;  the  picked  men  from  the 
garrisons  along  the  railroad  were  gathered 
at  Atlanta;  on  November  12  the  last  tele 
graph  wire  connecting  Sherman  with  Wash 
ington  was  broken,  and  four  days  later  the 
army,  60,000  strong,  and  every  man  a  selected 
veteran,  marched  out  of  Atlanta,  chanting: 

"John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mould'ring  in  the 

grave, 
His  soul  is  marching  on! " 

In  December,  Thomas  justified  the  confidence 
placed  in  him  by  defeating  Hood  and  taking 
nearly  4500  prisoners  at  Nashville. 

The  stirring  words  of  Sherman's  marching 
song  were  not  set  to  music  until  the  raid  was 
over,  but  they  tell  the  story.  It  was  a  holi 
day  trip,  with  almost  no  opposition,  in  spite 
of  the  impassioned  appeals  of  Beauregard  that 
Georgia  rise  to  annihilate  the  presumptuous 
invader.  In  four  columns,  foraging  liberally 
upon  the  country,  the  troops  advanced.  A 
strip  of  the  richest  lands  of  Georgia, 

"Sixty  miles  in  latitude  —  three  hundred  to  the 
main," 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE     235 

was  left  empty  in  their  rear.  In  great  variety, 
the  food  of  the  countryside  was  brought  in 
by  the  "bummers,"  as  the  foragers  were 
called;  while  the  negroes,  seeing  the  "  Yanks " 
for  the  first  time,  followed  in  the  rear  of 
their  deliverers.  The  song  tells  it  all: 

"How  the  darkeys  shouted  when  they  heard  the 

joyful  sound! 
How  the  turkeys  gobbled  which  our  commissary 

found! 
How  the  sweet  potatoes  even  started  from  the 

ground, 
While  we  were  marching  through  Georgia." 

The  populace  suffered,  and  Sherman's 
name  is  still  a  mark  for  southern  execration. 
In  such  a  campaign  it  is  not  strange  that 
private  property  was  not  always  safe.  Food 
and  stock  were  fair  prey;  money,  silver, 
trinkets,  ought  to  have  been  let  alone,  and 
Sherman's  orders  gave  no  countenance  to 
thefts  of  these.  But  with  an  army  of  hila 
rious  boys,  as  most  of  the  "  vetreans"  yet  were, 
operating  in  the  enemy's  country,  with  the 
irrepressible  love  of  souvenirs  that  still 
marks  the  American  youth  and  runs  riot 
over  street  signs  and  hotel  silver  in  every 
college  town,  a  nice  and  proper  discrimina 
tion  between  materials  of  war  and  private 
property  could  not  be  maintained.  The 
women  of  the  country,  however,  had  nothing 
worse  to  fear  than  the  theft  of  their  family 
spoons.  The  men  did  not  know  where  they 
were  going  and  did  not  care;  Sherman  car- 


236  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

ried  the  whole  burden  of  responsibility, 
knowing  that  if  he  failed  his  march  "would 
be  adjudged  the  wild  adventure  of  a  crazy 
fool." 

On  December  13,  Sherman  reached  the 
sea,  whence  he  communicated  with  the  fleet 
off-shore.  Eight  days  later  the  garrison  of 
Savannah  ran  a  pontoon  bridge  across  the 
Savannah  River,  and  escaped  into  South 
Carolina,  while  the  Union  army  entered  the 
city  the  same  day.  The  capture  of  the  city 
came  to  Lincoln  as  a  Christmas  gift.  Sher 
man  had  found  no  dangers  on  the  march, 
and  had  come  into  Savannah  with  a  loss 
of  under  one  thousand  men. 

The  Confederate  arrangements  of  1865 
were  dictated  by  the  news  which  Sherman 
sent  out  from  Savannah.  He  had  been 
authorized,  on  January  2,  to  continue  his 
march  to  the  north,  and  declared  his  inten 
tion  of  heading  for  either  Charleston,  north 
along  the  coast,  or  Augusta,  up  the  Savannah 
River.  Wheeler  and  Wade  Hampton,  with 
their  cavalry,  were  sent  to  head  him  off, 
while  what  was  left  of  Hood's  army,  after 
Nashville,  together  with  some  militia,  was 
collected  in  the  Carolinas  under  "Joe"  John 
ston,  who  was  now  restored  to  active  com 
mand.  In  February,  Sherman's  army,  still 
about  60,000  strong,  left  Savannah,  not 
for  either  of  the  points  announced,  but  on  a 
course  between  them,  for  Columbia. 

This  march  was  no  picnic,  as  the  march 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE     237 

to  Savannah  had  been.  It  crossed  all  the 
rivers  and  creeks  flowing  seaward;  it  found 
few  roads  and  almost  no  bridges;  everywhere, 
a  desperate  enemy  obstructed  the  advance, 
while  the  incessant  rains  of  early  spring 
prepared  bottomless  quagmires  for  the  bag 
gage  trains.  On  February  17,  Hampton 
abandoned  Columbia,  the  capital  of  his 
state,  to  Sherman,  and  in  the  confusion  of 
occupation  it  was  destroyed  by  fire, — 
probably  started  by  drunken  irregulars  who 
disgraced  both  armies.  That  not  all  of 
Sherman's  men  were  destructive  is  proved 
by  the  discovery  of  one  of  the  Iowa  troops, 
who,  after  standing  guard  over  a  stranger's 
chickens,  was  "in  another  room  minding 
her  baby"  while  she  was  visited  by  the 
commander. 

From  Columbia  the  advance  continued 
to  Fayetteville,  which  Sherman  entered  on 
March  11.  Charleston  had  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  the  fleet  without  a  battle,  as  soon 
as  her  railroad  connections  with  the  interior 
had  been  cut.  On  March  19,  Sherman's 
advance  ran  into  Johnston's  whole  army, 
making  a  stand  near  Goldsboro,  and  was 
temporarily  stopped.  He  had  reached  the 
centre  of  North  Carolina,  four  hundred  and 
twenty-five  miles  from  Savannah.  Within 
the  next  few  weeks  Sherman  and  Grant 
ended  the  war. 

Grant's  first  campaign  in  Virginia  had 
resulted  in  great  losses  in  the  Wilderness,  in 


238  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

the  spring  of  1864,  with  no  compensating 
gains.  He  had  followed  it  at  once  with  a 
second,  an  advance  up  the  James  River, 
in  which  Petersburg  blocked  and  held  him. 
With  a  tired  army,  cut  in  two  by  its  losses, 
he  began  his  siege. 

s  The  importance  of  Petersburg  to  Rich 
mond  was  greater  than  that  of  an  outlying 
defensive  fortress.  It  was  a  railroad  centre 
of  quite  as  much  significance  as  the  capital 
city.  Five  lines  of  track  connected  it  with 
Richmond  and  City  Point  and  Norfolk,  on 
the  James,  with  Goldsboro  and  Wilmington, 
to  the  south,  and  with  Lynchburg,  to  the 
west.  A  large  part  of  the  supplies  for  Lee, 
from  the  south,  passed  through  it;  and  sup 
plies,  by  the  summer  of  1864,  were  coming 
to  be  of  first  importance  to  the  Confederacy. 
Under  the  insistent  pressure  of  Grant,  Lee 
held  a  line  thirty-five  miles  long,  from  a 
point  north  of  Richmond  to  one  south  of 
Petersburg.  The  James  protected  his  front 
on  the  left,  the  Appomattox  covered  his 
right.  The  Union  armies  confronting  him 
were  split  by  the  James,  below  the  junction 
of  the  Appomattox;  Butler  was  north, 
Grant  was  south  of  the  river. 

With  smaller  resources,  but  with  a  skill 
not  surpassed  by  Grant,  Lee  turned  off  the 
attacks  upon  his  position.  In  July,  1864, 
an  attempt  was  made  to  mine  the  fortifica 
tions  of  Petersburg,  blow  up  a  section  of 
them,  and  carry  the  city  by  assault.  The 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE    239 

news  of  the  mining  reached  the  Confeder 
ates,  creating  some  of  the  nervousness  that 
Grant  counted  on.  But  when  the  mine  was 
exploded  on  July  30,  the  assault  was  mis 
managed,  and  nearly  three  thousand  were 
killed  and  wounded  in  the  crater.  In  the  next 
month  the  work  of  Early  in  the  Valley  in 
duced  Grant  to  detach  Sheridan  for  the 
autumn  campaign  around  Winchester. 

Through  the  rest  of  1864,  there  were  re 
peated  attempts  to  catch  Lee  napping,  to 
break  his  thin  line,  to  turn  his  flanks,  or  to 
destroy  the  railroads  in  his  rear.  But  Sher 
man,  on  the  whole,  was  weakening  him  more 
than  Grant.  The  fall  of  Atlanta  in  Septem 
ber  cost  the  Confederacy  many  of  its  existing 
supplies,  and  the  hope  of  more.  The  march 
to  the  sea  destroyed  food  and  confidence; 
the  news  of  burning  barns  and  scattered 
families  had  a  moral  influence  on  the  men  of 
Lee's  command.  His  soldiers  deserted  in 
large  numbers  to  look  after  the  families  at 
home,  and  the  people  at  home  sheltered  the 
deserters  from  the  searching  parties  of  the 
provost-marshals.  The  southern  people  tired 
of  the  war;  if  their  opinion  could  have  been 
registered,  it  would  probably  have  stopped 
now;  for  Georgia  was  in  almost  open  mutiny 
against  the  Richmond  government,  and 
North  Carolina  threatened  to  secede.  But 
the  Confederate  leaders,  who  had  revolted 
against  a  nationalized  government,  charging 
that  it  contemplated  an  attack  against  the 


240  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

existence  of  their  states,  carried  on  their  war 
with  a  high  hand.  State  rights  in  the  South 
were  not  allowed  to  restrict  the  hand  of  gov 
ernment.  The  Confederate  supreme  court 
was  never  created,  to  pass  upon  the  legality 
of  the  acts  of  Davis  and  his  secretaries,  and 
until  his  administration  was  driven  to  flight, 
with  its  armies  actually  captured  or  dis 
persed,  the  war  had  to  go  on. 

Early  in  1865,  Lee  could  see  what  Davis 
would  not  admit,  that  the  fall  of  Petersburg 
and  Richmond  was  only  a  matter  of  time. 
In  desperation,  they  both  listened  to  the 
astute  Benjamin,  secretary  of  state,  who 
advised  that  slavery  be  abolished  as  a  means 
of  securing  European  aid,  and  that  the  ne 
groes  be  armed  to  fight  for  independence. 
Lee  advised  that  Richmond  be  abandoned, 
and  that  the  government  take  refuge  in  the 
Blue  Ridge,  beyond  Lynchburg,  where  a 
handful  of  troops  could  cover  the  mountain 
passes  and  maintain  a  resistance  for  an  in 
definite  period.  Neither  of  these  plans  was 
acted  upon,  and  the  new  year  opened  with 
the  defence  of  Richmond  still  the  primary 
Confederate  policy. 

After  Sheridan's  successes  in  the  Valley, 
and  Sherman's  in  the  South,  Grant  was  sure 
he  could  end  the  war  in  a  single  brief  cam 
paign.  The  net  was  tightening.  Along  the 
coast,  the  blockade  was  effective.  There  was 
no  retreat  to  the  south,  with  Sherman  there, 
Savannah  and  Charleston  under  Union  garri- 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE     241 

sons,  and  Atlanta  empty.  To  the  north, 
there  was  only  Grant's  inevitable  line,  and 
the  devastated  Valley.  Behind  Lynchburg 
was  the  single  way  out,  and  toward  this 
gap  both  commanders  turned  their  attention. 

Grant's  line,  when  he  took  the  field  after 
the  winter  rains  (through  which  Sherman 
had  grimly  tramped),  was  a  long  crescent, 
extending  from  the  Valley,  where  Sheridan 
remained  until  March,  to  Goldsboro,  where 
Sherman  arrived  in  the  same  month.  His 
right  wing  of  1864  had  become  his  left  wing 
for  the  final  struggle,  after  traversing  Georgia, 
South  Carolina,  and  North  Carolina.  Within 
his  embrace  lay  both  Lee  and  Johnston,  now 
deprived  of  their  food  supplies  from  either 
the  Valley  or  the  southern  interior. 

Sheridan  was  specially  charged  to  look 
after  Lynchburg,  its  railroad,  and  its  canal, 
lest  any  of  them  should  be  used  by  Lee  in  his 
extremity.  Like  Lee,  Grant  realized  the 
difficulties  in  driving  an  army  out  of  the  val 
leys  of  the  Blue  Ridge.  Sherman  was  left 
to  watch  and  hold  Johnston,  for  Grant  did 
not  want  him  in  at  the  finish  of  Lee's  army, 
being  "very  anxious  to  have  the  Eastern 
armies  vanquish  their  old  enemy  who  had 
so  long  resisted  all  their  repeated  and  gallant 
attempts  to  subdue  them  or  drive  them  from 
their  capital." 

Lee  had  prepared  for  his  escape  by  remov 
ing  his  supplies  from  Richmond,  along  the 
railroad  to  Amelia  Court  House,  hah*  way  to 


242  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

Lynchburg.  Before  he  followed  them,  he 
tried  once  more  to  create  confusion  in  the 
Union  ranks  by  an  assault.  On  March  24,  he 
surprised  and  broke  through  the  line,  a  little 
north  of  Petersburg,  with  a  disastrous  suc 
cess,  since  his  assaulting  party  got  so  far 
into  the  enemy's  country  that  all  were  cap 
tured  the  next  morning,  —  a  loss  to  Lee  of 
nearly  four  thousand. 

The  armies  of  the  Potomac  and  the  James 
moved  out  of  their  entrenchments  on  March 
29.  Sheridan  was  with  them,  having  com 
pleted  his  work  at  the  extreme  right,  and  now 
led  the  advance  to  the  south  of  Petersburg. 
At  Dinwiddie  Court  House,  on  March  31, 
and  at  Five  Forks,  the  next  day,  Lee  resisted 
the  advance;  but  when,  on  April  2,  Peters 
burg  was  taken  by  storm,  he  abandoned  his 
position,  and  Richmond  too,  and  started  on 
his  retreat.  On  Monday,  April  3,  Davis,  his 
government,  and  his  archives,  were  moved 
to  Danville,  the  President  still  protesting 
his  determination  to  "die  in  the  last  ditch." 
A  few  days  more,  and  they  were  scattered  in 
promiscuous  flight. 

The  fall  of  the  Confederate  capital  demor 
alized  the  North  with  indiscriminate  rejoic 
ing.  At  Washington,  it  degenerated  into  a 
debauch  among  the  clerks.  The  churches 
held  services  of  praise  and  thanksgiving. 
Whatever  had  been  the  disposition  of  in 
dividuals  while  the  outcome  was  in  doubt,  all 
were  Unionists  now,  and  read  with  joy  the 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE     243 

news  that  Davis  was  in  flight,  that  Lincoln 
had  visited  the  deserted  Richmond,  that 
Grant  and  Sheridan  were  hot  on  the  trail  of 
Lee's  retreating  army. 

The  trail  was  short.  Lee's  stores,  meagre 
at  best,  that  had  been  collected  in  freight 
cars  at  Amelia  Court  House,  had  been 
hauled  back  to  Richmond,  through  the 
anxiety  of  the  civil  officers  to  save  themselves. 
Hungry  and  tired,  his  men  dropped  out  of 
the  ranks.  Nearly  14,000  were  captured 
during  the  first  week  in  April.  But  Lee 
pushed  on,  between  the  valleys  of  the  Appo- 
mattox  and  the  James,  until  on  April  8  he 
found  Sheridan,  "nimbler-footed"  than  him 
self,  heading  him  off  at  Appomattox  Court 
House. 

On  April  7,  Grant  had  shifted  "the  re 
sponsibility  of  any  further  effusion  of  blood" 
by  calling  upon  Lee  to  surrender  his  AjTmy 
of  Northern  Virginia.  On  the  9th,  the  gene 
rals  met  in  a  residence  near  Appomattox 
Court  House,  Lee  dignified,  impassive,  and 
resplendent  in  a  new  uniform,  Grant  in 
working  clothes,  a  shabby  fatigue  blouse, 
without  a  sword;  but  the  conqueror,  in  his 
diffidence,  talked  about  old  times  and  the 
Mexican  War  for  half  an  hour,  until  Lee 
recalled  him  to  the  purpose  of  their  meeting. 
The  terms  were  simple,  and  as  generous  as 
Lincoln  could  have  made  them,  —  surrender 
of  all,  but  no  humiliation,  the  officers  re 
taining  their  side  arms  and  riding  away  on 


244  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

their  own  horses,  the  men  allowed  to  keep 
their  horses  to  work  their  farms,  and  all  fed 
at  once  by  an  army  that  turned  its  hostility 
into  hospitality.  Toward  the  end  of  April, 
Johnston  surrendered  to  Sherman;  Kirby 
Smith  gave  up  his  fragment  of  an  army  in 
the  trans-Mississippi  in  May,  and  the  war 
was  over. 

The  return  of  the  victorious  armies  of  the 
Union  to  the  farm,  the  workshop,  and  the 
office,  was  as  great  a  triumph  as  their  con 
quests  had  been.  Nearly  a  million  men  were 
mustered  out  in  1865.  As  rapidly  as  Grant 
could  direct  it,  the  armies  were  brought 
back  to  the  great  camps  around  Washington. 
Here  they  were  collected  for  one  last  march 
together,  before  they  dispersed  forever.  On 
May  23  and  24,  they  paraded  the  length  of 
Pennsylvania  Avenue,  in  the  midst  of  a 
great  throng,  with  the  President  and  their 
commanders  on  the  reviewing  stand.  It 
was  noticed  by  the  observers  that  Sherman's 
troops  were  ragged  and  unkempt  beyond  the 
average.  They  had  lived  for  nearly  a  year 
from  hand  to  mouth.  But  they  knew,  and 
their  leaders  knew,  that  there  probably  had 
never  been  another  sixty-thousand  so  tough 
and  true,  with  so  few  weaklings  among  them. 

The  officers  who  rode  in  the  review,  like 
the  President  who  inspected  them,  were  men 
whom  none  would  have  picked  in  1861,  as 
the  probable  leaders  of  the  war.  Scott  was 
yet  living,  but  in  the  retirement  of  old  age; 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE     245 

McClellan  had  no  part  in  the  triumph.  A 
group  of  men,  whose  reputations  had  been 
won  amidst  the  hardest  knocks,  had  seized 
the  tools  of  war  and  wielded  them.  In  the 
rejoicings  of  the  day,  the  men  in  uniform 
knew  better  than  the  shouters  what  their 
enemy  had  been,  how  to  estimate  his  vir 
tues,  and  what  was  the  meaning  of  defeat. 

The  Union  remained  intact  after  the  great 
est  of  civil  wars.  It  had  been  proved  that  a 
republic  can  act  efficiently,  that  a  majority 
can  rule,  that  a  peaceful  people  can  turn  to 
war  and  conduct  it  with  success.  The  Con 
stitution,  too,  remained  as  it  had  been  before 
the  South  tried  to  test  its  strength.  The 
nation  was  on  the  eve  of  an  industrial  revolu 
tion  that  was  to  bring  its  changes  in  the 
course  of  time;  but  a  scheme  of  government 
that  had  outlived  the  Civil  War  was  past  all 
fear  of  destruction. 

The  armies  of  Lee  and  Johnston  returned 
to  poverty  and  humiliation.  For  four  years 
they  had  kept,  with  steady  eye,  the  one  end 
of  independence  before  themselves.  Every 
thing  they  had  or  hoped  for  was  staked  upon 
it.  They  now  went  back  to  broken  homes,  to 
plundered  farms,  to  nearly  total  devasta 
tion.  That  they  had  brought  these  things 
upon  themselves  only  deepens  the  pity. 
They  were,  moreover,  going  home  in  uncer 
tainty  as  to  what  the  future  might  have  in 
store  for  them,  as  people  or  as  states. 

Lincoln  had  looked  forward  to  this  day  of 


246  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

readjustment  from  the  time  when  the  Union 
forces  wrenched  the  first  bits  of  soil  from  the 
armies  of  the  Confederacy.  It  was  a  conven 
ient  theory  for  him  to  assert  that  the  people 
were  deceived,  that  the  Confederacy  was  a 
legal  phantom,  that  when  the  people  should 
return  to  their  senses,  and  obey  the  law,  they 
would  be  restored  to  the  enjoyment  of  their 
rights  as  citizens.  He  had  acted  upon  this 
theory  in  his  dealings  with  Virginia,  Ten 
nessee,  Louisiana,  and  Arkansas,  and  Con 
gress  had  approved  his  course  up  to  18G3. 
But  as  the  war  dragged  on,  and  the  full 
measure  of  Confederate  determination  was 
understood,  Lincoln  was  left  alone  in  his 
generosity.  The  men  who  actually  fought, 
on  either  side,  had  little  rancor  in  them. 
To-day,  the  keen  analysis  of  history  has 
shown  that  the  South  was  helpless  in  the 
hand  of  destiny;  the  scientists  have  shown 
that  the  law  of  evolution  preserves  the  higher 
type  with  relentless  and  extravagant  cruelty. 
But  in  the  North,  the  desire  to  find  someone 
who  could  be  punished  crowded  out  the 
thoughts  of  compassion  as  well  as  those  of 
wisdom. 

If  only  from  practical  considerations,  econ 
omy  and  expediency  forbade  retaliation. 
Peace  always  comes  quickest  after  a  civil 
war  when  the  victors  are  generous  to  the 
vanquished.  Lincoln  knew  this,  and  the 
tones  of  his  second  inaugural  show  that  he 
intended  to  have  no  hand  in  the  punishment 


THE  CONFEDERATE  COLLAPSE      247 

of  leaders,  or  led,  in  the  South.  As  he  had 
turned  every  political  tool  which  a  profound 
politician  knows  to  the  maintenance  of  the 
Union,  so  he  stood  ready  to  turn  them  to  the 
softening  of  the  feelings  of  the  North  and 
Congress. 

On  the  night  of  April  14,  while  Washington 
and  the  North  were  still  delirious  over  the 
collapse  of  the  Confederacy,  Lincoln  was 
murdered  by  a  fanatical  actor,  Booth  by 
name,  and  the  routine  of  the  Constitution 
put  in  his  place  a  Democrat,  a  southerner, 
and,  far  worse,  a  man  of  indomitable  will 
and  utter  lack  of  tact.  Andrew  Johnson  was 
the  worst  man  who  could  have  succeeded 
Lincoln,  for  he  could  not  hope  to  act  in  har 
mony  with  a  Republican  Congress,  now  that 
the  binding  issue  of  Union  was  no  more.  He 
took  up  the  work  where  it  had  dropped,  ap 
pointed  military  governors  for  the  southern 
states,  and  toward  the  end  of  May  issued 
a  proclamation  that  Lincoln  had  planned, 
offering  a  generous  pardon,  and  stating  the 
terms  on  which  the  loyal  citizens  of  the  South 
would  be  aided  in  restoring  their  state  govern 
ments.  Probably  Lincoln  would  have  failed 
to  carry  Congress  with  him  in  this  leniency; 
Johnson  could  never  do  it.  But  before  Con 
gress  could  meet  or  interfere,  reconstruction, 
as  Lincoln  would  have  wished  it,  was  well  ad 
vanced,  and  the  Thirteenth  Amendment,  the 
legal  child  of  emancipation,  was  being  accepted 
by  the  states  of  the  old  Confederacy. 


248  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

What  Congress  did,  and  tried  to  do,  does 
not  belong  to  the  history  of  the  Civil  War. 
That  ends  with  the  termination  of  resistance. 
How  Johnson,  in  place  of  fighting  "traitors" 
in  the  South,  turned  to  fight  them  in  Congress, 
how  he  relapsed  into  the  strict-construction- 
ist  Democracy  of  his  early  life,  how  Republi 
cans  repudiated  and  belabored  him,  belong 
to  the  unsavory  story  of  Reconstruction. 
War  had  been  bad  enough  for  the  South.  In 
the  North  it  had  placed  a  premium  on  resolu 
tion,  narrow  loyalty,  intolerance,  the  vir 
tues  of  war,  every  one  of  which  was  an 
obstacle  to  the  return  of  peace.  Northern 
revenge,  in  the  guise  of  preservation  of  the 
dearly  won  Union,  was  worse  than  war  for 
the  South.  Yet  it  was  the  logical  result  of 
the  emotional  outpouring  which  alone  made 
it  possible  to  save  the  nation,  and  of  the 
secession  which  made  that  outpouring  neces 
sary.  It  is  possible  to  show  that  the  South 
was  led  into  secession  by  causes  which  it 
could  not  control;  yet  it  was  led  into  an  evil 
path.  In  the  words  of  Grant,  who  was 
"depressed  ...  at  the  downfall  of  a  foe  who 
had  fought  so  long  and  valiantly,"  the  fact 
remains  thai/  the  Confederate  cause  was  "one 
of  the  worst  for  which  a  people  ever  fought, 
and  one  for  which  there  was  the  least  excuse." 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 


THE  best  account  of  the  Civil  War  yet  written  is  by  James 
Ford  Rhodes,  in  his  History  of  the  United  States  from  the  Com 
promise  of  1850  to  the  final  Restoration  of  Home  Rule  at  the 
South  in  1877  (7  vols.,  1906),  and  it  is  not  likely  that  his 
work  will  be  improved  upon  in  impartiality,  scholarship,  or 
literary  skill  for  many  years.  In  A.  B.  Hart's  co-operative 
American  Nation  (27  vols.,  1904-1908),  there  are  three  small 
volumes  which  together  give  an  excellent  r6sum6  of  the  war, 
and  admirable  lists  of  books  relating  to  special  phases  and 
single  campaigns:  F.  E.  Chadwick,  Causes  of  the  Civil  War, 
J.  K.  Hosnaer,  The  Appeal  to  Arms,  J.  K.  Hosmer,  Outcome  of 
the  Civil  War.  T.  A.  Dodge's  A  Bird's-Eye  View  of  our  Civil 
War  (1883,  and  later  editions),  has  long  been  the  best  and 
clearest  purely  military  view  of  the  struggle;  it  is,  however, 
very  brief,  and  may  be  supplemented  by  J.  Formby's  Ameri 
can  Civil  War  (1910,  with  a  volume  of  maps),  or  the  hand 
book  prepared  for  the  British  Staff  College,  Wood  and 
Edmonds,  History  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States  (1905). 

No  contemporary  account  gives  more  picturesque  detail 
than  Horace  Greeley's  American  Conflict  (2  vols.,  1866), 
which  is  still  readable.  Shortly  after  the  restoration  of  peace, 
two  Confederate  leaders  presented  their  views  of  the  struggle: 
Jefferson  Davis,  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Govern 
ment  (2  vols.,  1881),  and  A.  H.  Stephens,  Constitutional  View 
of  the  Late  War  between  the  States  (2  vols.,  1870).  During 
the  eighties,  the  Century  Company  collected  the  reminiscences 
of  participants,  and  published  them  first  serially,  and  then  in 
Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War  (4  vols.,  1888).  These 
accounts  possess  all  the  charm  of  first  hand  narratives,  but 
careful  historians  always  check  them  up  with  the  original 
correspondence  that  has  been  printed  in  the  great  United 
States  Government  series,  Official  Records  of  the  Union  and 
Confederate  Armies  and  Navies  in  the  War  of  the  Rebellion 
(more  than  150  volumes,  and  still  growing). 

The  biographical  side  of  the  Civil  War  is  abundantly  sup 
plied  with  memoirs,  autobiography,  and  biography,  among 
251 


THE  CIVIL  WAR 

which  the  greatest  book  is  Personal  Memoirs  of  U.  S.  Grant 
(2  vols.,  1886).  This  classic  is  followed  closely  in  interest  by 
Memoirs  of  William  T.  Sherman,  by  Himself  (2  vols.,  1875), 
and  Personal  Memoirs  of  P.  H.  Sheridan  (2  vols.,  1888). 
G.  B.  McClelland  Own  Story  (1887)  gives  remarkable  self- 
revelation  upon  the  character  of  the  writer,  but  acquits  him  of 
everything  but  egotism.  An  equally  useful  Confederate  biog 
raphy  is  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  Narrative  of  Military  Opera 
tions  (1874). 

Of  formal  biographies,  the  greatest  is  Nicolay  and  Hay, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  a  History  (10  vols.,  1890),  which  is  a  monu 
mental  classic  that  has  provided  the  foundation  for  the  grow 
ing  posthumous  reputation  of  Lincoln.  It  is  not  critical.  It 
has  been  supplemented  on  the  personal  side  by  Ida  M.  Tar- 
bell's  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  (4  vols.,  1907),  which  gives  a 
clearer  view  of  Lincoln's  human  qualities  than  any  other 
work.  Among  the  lesser  biographies,  there  should  be  noted, 
F.  Bancroft,  William  H.  Seward  (2  vols.,  1900),  C.  F.  Adams, 
Charles  Francis  Adams  (1900),  A.  B.  Hart,  Salmon  P.  Chase 
(1899),  E.  P.  Oberholtzer,  Jay  Cooke,  Financier  of  the  Civil 
War  (2  vols.,  1907),  A.  L.  Long,  Memoirs  of  Robert  E.  Lee 
(1887),  G.  F.  R.  Henderson,  Stonewall  Jackson  and  the  Amer 
ican  Civil  War  (2  vols.,  1900,  a  professional  soldier's  view), 
W.  E.  Dodd,  Je/erson  Davis  (1907,  by  a  critical  southern 
historian). 

The  growing  interest  in  sides  of  the  Civil  War  period,  other 
than  the  military,  has  recently  produced  two  books  of  great 
value.  J.  C.  Schwab's  Confederate  States  of  America  (1901) 
gives  an  intimate  view  of  the  financial  and  industrial  condition 
of  the  South  from  1861  to  1865.  E.  D.  Fite's  Social  and  Indus 
trial  Conditions  in  the  North  During  the  Civil  War  (1910), 
shows  the  progress  made  by  the  Union  in  spite  .of  war,  and  is 
a  good  corrective  to  the  point  of  view  of  the  military  historians. 

For  additional  references,  the  reader  should  consult  the 
bibliographies  in  Chadwick  and  Hosmer,  above  mentioned, 
and  J.  N.  Lamed,  Literature  of  American  History  (a  general 
bibliography  printed  in  1902,  in  which  the  leading  scholar  in 
the  history  of  the  war,  General  J.  D.  Cox,  has  appraised  the 
books  bearing  on  the  Civil  War). 


INDEX 


ABOLITION,  25 

Adams,  C.  R,  78-91, 186-190 
Adams,  J.  Q.,  107 
"Alabama,"  87,  188,  229 
"Alexandra,"  189 
Amnesty,  181,  247 
Anderson,  51 
Andrew,  61 
Antietam,  101 

Appomattox,  C.  H.,  243-245 
Army,  Confederate,  191,  211 
Army,  U.  S.  Regular,  54 
Army,  U.  S.  Volunteer,  61, 

64,  191,  202,  211 
Atlanta,  243-245 

Bancroft,  84 

Banks,  96,  98,  134 

Bates,  112 

Beauregard,  52,  66,  129,  234 

Bell,  32 

Benjamin,  240 

Blair,  112,  118 

Blockade,  72,  192,  229 

Booth,  247 

Border  States,  67,  106,  117 

Bragg,  126,  135-137,  145,  155 

Breckenridge,  32 

Bright,  188 

British  sympathy,   87,   186- 

190 
Buchanan,  27,  39,  43,  50 


Buckner,  122,  123,  146 

Buell,  119,  124 

Bulloch,  88 

Bull  Run,  66,  81,  100 

Burnside,  102,  161 

Butler,  99,  105.  180,  211,  238 

Cairo,  115 
Calhoun,  12,  22 
Cameron,  48 
Causes,  1-24 
Cedar  Creek,  230 
Chancellorsville,  164-165 
Chase,  29,  47,  112,  198,  215 
Chattahoochee,  226 
Chattanooga,  146-156 
Chickamauga,  146 
Cold  Harbor,  212 
Columbia,  237 
Compensation,  106 
Confederate  Government,  37, 

38,44 

Confiscation,  105,  109 
Constitutional    Amendment, 

42 
Constitutional      Convention, 

15,20 
Constitutional  Law,  40,  74, 

175,  215 

"Contraband  of  War,"  105 
Cooke,  201 
"Copperheads,"  112,  219-222 


253 


254 


INDEX 


Cotton.  12-14,  59,  76,  208 
Corinth,  129.  135.  139 
Crook,  211 

Dallas,  77,  78 

Dana,  139 

Davis,  38,  53,  65,  78,  81,  96, 

117,  146,  227,  240,  242 
Dinwiddie,  C.  H.,  242 
Donelson,  Fort,  120-123 
Douglas,  30,  32,  46 

Dred  Scott  Case,  30 

Early,  229 

Economic  development  of 
North,  203-207 

Election  of  1856,  27;  of  1858, 
SO;  of  1860,  31,  103, 
113;  of  1862,  113;  of 
1864,  209-214, 223,  230 

Emancipation,  103,  104,  109- 
113 

Ezra  Church,  227 

Farragut,  99,  229 

Finance,  193-203 

Fisher's  Hill,  230 

Five  Forks,  242 

Floyd,  122 

Foote,  122 

Foreign  affairs,  72-91,  186- 

190 

Fox,  73 
France,  81 

Fredericksburg,  161-163 
Fremont,  27,  39,  64,  98,  104, 

118,  215 

Gettysburg,  167-173 
Gettysburg  address,  184 


Gilpin,  133     ' 
Gladstone,  90 
Goldsboro,  237 
Grafton,  68 

Grant,      120-133,      135-159, 
209-214,  229,  237-244 
Greeley,  108,  217 
Guerrilla  warfare,  134 

Habeas  Corpus,  218 
Halleck,  100,  118,  120,  123- 

125,  129,  143,  158 
Hampton,  236 
Hancock,  169 
Harper's  Ferry,  63 
Henry,  Fort,  120,  121 
Holly  Springs,  141 
Hood,  227,  233 
Hooker,  153,  155,  158,  163- 

166 
Hunter.  104 

Inaugural  addresses,  46,  231 
Island  Number  10,  120,  124 
luka.  139 

Jackson,  Miss.,  144 
Jackson,  96,  97,  98,  164,  165 
Johnson,  174,  178-180,  247 
Johnston,  A.  S.,  62,  119,  122, 

125,  126,  135,  147 
Johnston,  J.  E.,  66,  142,  156, 

210,  225-227,  236 

Kansas-Nebraska,  26 
Kearsarge,  229 
Kenesaw  Mountain,  226 
Knoxville,  150,  156 

Labor,  13,  22,  193 
Laird  Brothers,  88,  189 


INDEX 


255 


Lee,  62,  96,  160-173,  209, 
238-243 

Lincoln,  29-32,  42,  44,  53,  64, 
80,  101,  104,  105,  108- 
113, 139, 158, 173-185, 
214-223,  230,  247 

Longstreet,  150,  156,  170 

Lookout  Mountain,  154 

Lower  South,  34;  map,  36 

Lyon,  118 

Lyons,  84 

McClellan,  64,  68-70,  92-103, 
113,  128,  158,  223,  230 
McDowell,  64,  66,  68,  96,  98 
McPherson,  224 
Magoffin,  119 
Mason,  81 

Manassas  Junction,  66 
Meade,  166,  211 
Memminger,  193 
Missionary  Ridge,  154 
Missouri  Compromise,  26 
Monitor  and  Merrimac,  99 
Murfreesboro,  138 

Napoleon  III,  190 
Nashville,  233,  234 
Naval  affairs,  72-76 
Neutrality,  79 
Neutrality  of  Kentucky,  64 
New  Madrid,  124 
New  York  Tribune,  26 
Northwest,  18,  203 

Palmer,  47,  152 
Palmerston,  78,   83,   84,   87, 

187 

Panic  of  1857,  60,  203 
Peach  Tree  Creek,  227 


Pemberton,  140,  142,  144 

Peninsular  campaign,  92-103 

Perryville,  137 

Petersburg,  213,  238-242 

Phelps,  180 

Pickett,  171 

Pierpont,  174 

Pillow,  122 

Pittsburg  Landing,  126 

Plantation  system,  14,  193 

Polk,  119,  147 

Pope,  100,  109,  124,  134 

Population,  55,  56,  191 

Porter,  142 

Price,  134,  178 

Prize  cases,  76 

Quantrill,  134 

Railroads,  19,  58,  116,  204; 

map  of,  57 
Reconstruction,  173-185, 245- 

248 

Resignation  of  officials,  40 
Richmond,  242 
Rosecrans,  137,  146-149 
Russell,  78-89,  186-190 

Savannah,  233-236 
Schofield,  224 
Scott,  50,  63,  68 
Secession,  25-38,  41,  63 
Sectionalism,  17,  28 
Semmes,  89 

Seward,  29,  47,  77,  80,  85,  111 
Seymour,  221 
Sharpsburg,  101 
Shenandoah  Valley,  97,  100, 

229 
Shepley,  180 


256 


INDEX 


Sheridan,  138,  153,  213,  229, 

240 
Sherman,  126,  140,  142,  150, 

154,    157,    210,    211. 

222-228,  233-237 
Shiloh,  126-128 
Sickles,  170 
Sigel,  211 
Sioux  War,  134 
Slaves,  22,  56 
Slidell,  81 
Spottsylvania,  212 
Stanton,  48,  112,  149 
"Star  of  the  West,"  51 
Stevens,  70,  176 
Stone's  River,  138 
Sumter,  Fort,  49-52,  60 


Thomas,  148-152, 
234 


155,  224. 


"Trent"  affair,  82-87 
"Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  29 

Vallandigham,  221 
Van  Dora.  136,  138 
Vicksburg,  140-145 

Webster,  12,  23 

Welles,  72 

West  Point,  62 

West  Virginia,  68,  173-175 

Westward  movement,  16 

Wheeler,  236 

Wigfall,  52 

Wilderness,  211 

Wilkes,  82 

Wilson's  Creek,  118 

Winchester,  230 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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DEC  1 8  1957 

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